While the editor is finishing up book six, I thought maybe we could take a sneak peek...
The Zombie Chronicles
Book 6 – Revelation
Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series
by
Chrissy Peebles
Copyright 2013 by Chrissy Peebles
http://www.chrissypeebles.blogspot.com
Cover design by: Cora Graphics
Edited by: Autumn J. Conley, autiej@gmail.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written
permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products
referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission.
The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or
sponsored by the trademark owners.
Chapter 1
We ended
up staying for a few weeks at the gated community with some friends a scientist
had hooked us up with. They were wonderful people and made sure we were
comfortable and well taken care of, but the U-Haul was packed and ready, and it
was time for us to go. It would be so hard to leave the city. Jackie wouldn't be coming with us, and that hurt more than anything. I told myself I’d stay
strong for her, to honor her memory, but it took everything I had not to break
down.
I stood
outside by the U-Haul, staring blankly at nothing in particular. Nothing made
sense, and I never felt so alone. I’d never felt so angry, so sad, so empty,
and the grief ripped through me mercilessly. Jackie had been shot in cold blood,
in her zombie state, by the scientists back at the lab. I’d tried everything to
save her, but nothing I could do could stop them; my best wasn’t enough. I
glanced down at the small photo album in my hands. Jackie had been such an
amazing person. Sucking in a deep breath, I tried to maintain my composure. Once
again, I felt as if I was trapped in a nightmare I couldn’t escape.
I slung
my rifle over my shoulder and made sure my pistol was secured tightly in my
holster. I was ready to take on anything that came at us. Deep down, I knew it
was anger that was fueling me on. I wanted to rip apart the next zombie I came
across. I was hurt, disappointed, and furious. Waves of despair washed over me,
and my heart grew numb as currents of raw anger held me underwater—or at least
it felt that way.
“Dean!”
Claire called from behind me.
She touched
my back, and our eyes locked. She looked so sad and lonely. Her eyes were red
and puffy from hours and hours of crying, and she was absolutely sick and pale
with grief. We’d both been struck with imaginable pain, and we could hardly function.
I wondered if Claire would ever be the same girl I’d met back in the woods; I
even wondered if I’d ever be the same person. I was so young, yet I felt older
than Nick, my older brother. We’d all been dragged through hell and back, and
we hadn’t exactly come through it unscathed.
“Val
said they’ll be out in a minute,” Claire said, then motioned to the windshield
of the U-Haul. “I had George and his fixer-upper guys repair the windshield.
Can’t drive like that, you know.”
“Yeah, I
saw it this morning. I already thanked George,” I said, remembering that awful
moment when the windshield broke during our escape from the pharmacy in that
zombie-riddled town. The thought sent shudders down my spine. “And thank you,
Claire, for looking out for our safety.”
“I can’t
help it. You guys are my friends, my family, and I’ll always care about you,” she
said.
I opened
the passenger door for Claire, and she just looked at me. She sniffled and
glanced down as a tear dripped off her chin, and my heart went out to her. “I
know it’s hard to leave, but—”
“I
can’t. I-I’m staying here,” she said in a shaky voice.
I wasn’t
expecting that answer, so I asked, “Why?”
She
wiped her eyes. “It’s safe here, Dean…and I’m not exactly the zombie-fighter
you want me to be.”
“Claire,
you can’t just—”
A chilly
morning breeze ruffled her red hair. “I’m so sorry, Dean, but this is a great
place. Here, we can actually walk around outside and feel safe. I know I was
wrong about the glass house, but I’m not wrong now.”
“No one
is ever really safe anymore,” I said, “not ever.”
“Fine. I’m
safer.”
My gaze
narrowed. “What about Nick? Does he even know?”
She
nodded. “Yeah. I already told him, as well as Val and Lucas. We shared a very
tearful goodbye. You and I both know there’s some crazy chemistry between your
brother and me, but the truth is, in any other time and place…well, we really
have little in common. We ended things on a good note.”
“Are you
sure there’s no way I can change your mind?”
“No.
Going back on the road, back out there with those things, is just not something
I wanna do anytime soon. I’m still having nightmares about all our little adventures.”
She then met my gaze directly. “The scientist told us that Jackie had a proper
burial and everything, but I still can’t leave her. I need to be able to
grieve, to visit her grave and make sure she has fresh flowers and…” Her shaky
voice trailed off and cracked as she struggled for the words.
“I loved
her too,” I said.
A tear
ran down her face. “I know, Dean. I know how much you loved her.”
I
glanced down. “I never told her though. I wish I would have.”
“Don’t
worry. She knew.”
For some
reason, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Claire too. “Please come with us.”
Her blue
eyes were so red and bloodshot; she’d obviously spent hours crying, and the
fatigue of our undead-infested world was wearing on her. “I’ve gotta do what’s
best for me. I hope you’ll understand.”
So, just
like that, our group had dwindled down to four: my brother and sister, Lucas,
and me. Oh well. Maybe that’s the way
it’s supposed to be, I thought, blowing out a long breath. “Then I guess
this is goodbye.”
She
embraced me tightly. “Good luck, Dean…and thank you for everything. You saved
my life and did so much for Jackie. I’ll never forget you.”
“When we
get our world back and communication is restored, I’ll be sure to Facebook you.”
Claire
playfully slugged me. “Maybe we’ll even be on a talk show together.” She wiped
her eyes.
“As long
as it’s not Jerry Springer,” I mused
as I pulled her into one more hug. “Stay safe. Practice your shooting skills
and keep working on those fighting techniques we taught you. You never know
when you might find yourself wandering around the forest again.”
“Hopefully
never. If I don’t step off of concrete and asphalt for the rest of my life,
that’d be perfectly fine with me.”
“Well,
like the Boy Scouts used to say, always be prepared. You didn’t think you’d be
attacked in the glass house either. When you feel to safe, you very well might
not be. Keep your guard up, okay?”
“I
promise.”
“Good
luck. It’s a cruel world we live in now, but we’ll come out on top, no matter
what it throws at us. We’re survivors. And we’ll never quit, we’ll never stop
giving up. We just come back stronger and fight harder.”
I knew that
after we left, I’d never see Claire again. I felt the same about Kate and Asia. Our only chance of ever bumping into one another
again would have to be on Skype or Facebook, if the world could even build back
up to that point before it collapsed in on itself. The one thing I did have was
a head full of memories, and I would forever cherish the ones of my friends,
the people I’d loved, lived with, and lost along the way.
“I know
we said our goodbyes in the house, but I just wanted to hug you one last time,”
Val said. After she finally released the embrace, she jumped into the passenger
seat.
The door
slammed, and Nick walked out of the house. He was hard to read, but I could
tell by his grim expression that he hated leaving Claire behind. When he walked
over to Claire, a tear ran down her face. They stared into each other’s eyes
and basked in an awkward silence.
“I’ll
let you say goodbye,” I said, opening the door and squeezing in next to Lucas
and Val. When I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw my brother passionately kissing
Claire.
“They’re
at it again,” Lucas said, rolling his eyes. “I’d tell ‘em to get a room, but the
last Super 8 I saw didn’t leave the lights on for ‘em.”
My heart
ached far too much for me to laugh at Lucas’s witty remark. I didn’t want to
lose Claire because she’d become part of our gang, but I understood her
reasons. I truly hoped we’d meet again someday, though I doubted that would
happen. She was a fantastic person and friend, as unforgettable as Jackie. The
girls had touched my life within the short span of time that I’d had the
privilege of knowing them. After everything we’d gone through together, I had
hoped for a better ending, but I was beginning to realize why
happily-ever-afters were reserved for fairytales.
Nick
jumped into the driver seat and started the ignition. He didn’t say a word as
he grasped the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip.
I shot
Claire one last look as she waved goodbye, and my stomach dropped as we pulled
out of the driveway.
“Are you
okay?” Val asked Nick.
“This is
for the best,” he answered, his face betraying no emotion. “She won’t make it
out here anyway. She’s better off here, and those people will take care of her.
I’m just glad we were able to find her a safe place to live, where she’ll have
what she needs.”
“It
sounds like you’re giving away a pet,” Lucas said.
“Lucas!”
Val said. “Stop it! Nick’s right. The girl can’t hack it out here. I feel
better knowing she’s in a safe place, with people who will protect her.”
“I’m
glad she’s happy,” Lucas said, “but I don’t get it, Nick. You were willing to
risk everything to save her life back at the nursing home, and now you’re just
leaving her here, without ever looking back. Doesn’t make much sense to me,
Romeo.”
“That
was different,” he said. “If I had left her at that nursing home, she would’ve
died. Here, I know she’s safe and will be taken care of. They even gave her a fancy
house, so her life will be close to normal, just like she wants—as normal as
someone can get out here.”
The security
guards opened the gates, and we turned left onto the main road. Nick pressed on
the gas, and we took off with a jerk.
I couldn’t
concentrate, and my thoughts were scattered as I stared at the passing scenery while
Nick sped down the road. We hadn’t been on the road for more than a few minutes
when all hell broke loose. As we turned the bend, there was a car crash, some
kind of four-car pileup that blocked the southbound lanes. I hoped Nick could squeeze
through the towering trees lining the roads and somehow maneuver around the
crash site, but that didn’t seem possible, even for him. Screams echoed and zombies
attacked.
Chapter 2
“Drive around
the cars!” Lucas yelled.
“With a
U-Haul?” Nick retorted. “We can’t!”
“Move
over and let me drive then.”
Val
gripped Lucas’s shoulder. “Sit down, Lucas. If we get stuck, we’ll be worse off,
caught in a zombie ambush.”
A tall
man hobbled toward the front of the truck, holding his broken, bleeding nose. He
stood directly in front of us on the road. I figured he wanted help, but I
gasped when he whipped out a pistol and aimed it directly at our newly repaired
windshield. The man panicked as moaning, decomposing bodies started to shamble
toward us. “Gimme your truck!” he yelled, his eyes wild, like he was a stark-raving
lunatic. “Get out and gimme the keys, or I’ll shoot you dead.”
Sometimes
survivors of the apocalypse could be more deadly than the cannibal corpses
themselves, but the man had completely underestimated my brother, who didn’t
even flinch.
“He’s gonna
shoot, Nick!” I yelled.
“Not
after we just got this windshield fixed!” Lucas whipped out his rifle and
pointed it straight ahead, out the window. He pulled the trigger and shot the
skinny man in the shoulder, giving him a much bigger problem to contend with
besides a nosebleed.
The man
dropped his gun as he fell backward, and two zombies took full advantage and
jumped on him like lions on a fallen gazelle.
“Go, go,
go!” Lucas yelled. “Back up! Turn around. We’ll find an alternate route.”
Like
something out of some awful horror film, the screams of terrified children echoed
through the air, and a cold chill shot down my spine. I saw them, a few cars
ahead, huddled together in the back seat of a black vehicle. Apparently, Val
heard and saw them too, because she quickly grabbed her door handle.
“Stop!” Nick
said.
Lucas snatched
her hand, his voice stern. “You’re not going out there.”
She
broke from his grasp. “Try and stop me.”
“Nick,
let’s go!” Lucas said. “Now! Before your sister gets any more crazy ideas.”
“Those
kids need us,” I chimed in. I couldn’t just leave them, and the whole thing was
far too reminiscent of the RV in the deserted town.
“He’s
right, Lucas. We can’t leave ‘em. They’re just kids,” Nick said.
I was
surprised that my brother still had a heart. He played tough, and he had no
problem making the tough choices that even I didn’t agree with, but deep down,
he shared the same compassion as Val and I had.
Nick
started to honk the horn, obviously trying to draw the zombies toward us so the
kids would have a fighting chance.
Three
zombies looked up and began to stumble away from the black car, heading in our
direction.
“This is
lame!” Val said. “Only a few are coming.”
“Give it
a sec’,” Nick calmly said.
“Honk
again!” Lucas yelled.
Nick
laid on the horn, and a couple more zombies turned to walk toward us, but the
rest of the corpses were too focused on the screaming people.
“Screw this!”
In a flash, Val jumped out of the truck with her gun drawn and bolted right
toward the action.
“Val!” Nick
yelled. “What the…?”
“That
girl has a mind of her own,” Lucas said, shaking his head, “and if she ain’t
careful, one of those things is gonna have it for dinner!”
“Tell me
about it,” Nick said, gritting his teeth. He shifted the truck into gear and eased
closer to the pileup. “She’s always gotta do things her way, whenever she darn
well feels like it.”
I
stuffed extra ammo in my pockets, then slung my rifle over my shoulder. After
Lucas jumped out, Nick and I followed. I slipped my gun out of my holster and aimed
at the horrific scene before me: a zombie raking its long, dead fingernails
down a man’s white t-shirt, cutting into his skin, causing blood to leak
through the cotton. Val shot the thing in the head, then moved on into the
battle with her gun drawn. Everywhere I looked, zombies wandered aimlessly
around. The sounds and moans of the undead gave me chills, and the stench of
death and rotting flesh made me gag. It was something I’d never get used to,
but it wouldn’t deter me either.
The man who
had tried to carjack us was flailing on the ground. His clothes had been torn
to shreds, and bite marks lined his arms, legs, and chest. There were so many chunks
of flesh missing from his neck and stomach that I couldn’t fathom how he was
still alive, screaming in agony. I fired shot after shot into the crowd of
zombies who were hovering and drooling over the would-be hijacker, and then
Lucas put the poor man out of his misery. There was no way he would survive his
wounds anyway, and watching anyone suffer like that was unbearable.
A long
scream echoed in the air as a heavyset zombie bit into a woman’s stomach and
tore at her flesh, causing blood to gush from her wounds. Another zombie
lurched for her face and sank its yellow, decaying teeth into her nose. I shot
the zombies, and they crumbled down, lifeless, but the woman was left in
absolute agony. I couldn’t bear to shoot her, but another man came up and ended
her suffering. The woman’s eyes fluttered shut as she took her last breath.
Cool, calm, and collected, Val stood atop the
roof of the black Dodge, shooting any zombie who came to close to the children
inside. The men and women who were already there were giving it all they had,
fighting zombies off with bats, crowbars, and anything else they could find.
One was even smacking the undead with a hubcap, and another was using her huge,
heavy designer leather purse like war hammer, mercilessly pounding the heads of
zombies who had tripped and fallen in the scuffle; the buckles ripped into the
zombie’s rotten flesh, removing scraps of it every time she swung. The harsh
truth was, though, that their makeshift weapons and valiant efforts would not
be enough to turn the tide in our favor though. The zombies were multiplying,
staggering in from the forest. I glanced over at a man who was swatting zombies
with an umbrella and poking them with the pointy end, and a woman was throwing
rocks and logs. If we were to thwart the horrible horde and win the battle, we
needed firepower. My only option was to hurry back to the U-Haul.
As I
turned to head back to the truck, though, three zombies approached, each in a different
stage of decomposition. I aimed at the closest one, the one with a twisted, mangled
face. I squeezed off the first shot, and the bullet cut through the air,
striking it straight in the head, just as I intended; it crashed to the ground,
a heap of rotting flesh. I held my breath, focused, aimed, and let off another
shot. More chunks of rotting flesh and gore sprayed everywhere. Finally, I let
off my third and final shot. More decayed body parts splattered into the air
like fleshy shrapnel, and the zombie slumped into the grass. Then, while shouts
and moans echoed in the air like some Halloween choir concert, I ran to the
back of the truck, threw open the doors, and grabbed as many guns as I could
haul back to the battlefield at once. “Hey!” I yelled to a man with short white
hair.
“Yeah?”
he said, spinning around.
I threw
him a gun.
He threw
down his tire iron, caught the gun, and nodded his thanks. As if he was some
kind of expert military marksman, he immediately started firing, straight into
the undead crowd that was howling for our blood. Nick had loaded all the guns,
so they were ready to be fired in an emergency, which we definitely had on our
hands.
One by
one, I passed weapons to the human soldiers, and that gave us a definite
advantage over our rotting and hungry opponents. Gunshots rang out all around
me, and the zombies fell like flies.
Suddenly,
a loud, shrill cry caught my attention, and I spun around in the direction it
had come from. I fired at a zombie that was clamping down on a man’s leg with
its powerful jaws.
“Ah! I’m
infected!” the man shouted.
I ran
over to tell him. “It’s okay,” I started. “We have a serum that can—”
Bang! Before I could get the words out, he had held the gun to his head
and pulled the trigger.
“No!” I
screamed, but it was too late.
Everything
was a blur as I let out shot after shot, taking down anything in my path. One
particular zombie seemed to have a real taste for me, as it walked straight
into the path of my barrel. I fired, and a shower of black gore exploded on the
tree behind it and began oozing down the bark like thick maple syrup. More undead
ghouls lumbered my way, but I carefully, calmly took aim and fired, dropping
four of the monsters to the ground.
I
scanned the area around me and saw a man in desperate need of help. Zombies had
isolated him, and he was out of ammo and had no other choice but to try to beat
them off with the butt of his gun. Just as a zombie lurched for his arm, I
fired. It stopped dead in its tracks and fell over sideways. The man I’d helped
darted off as more zombies came for me.
As I
fired shots into the ghoulish group, I tripped over a partially devoured body.
My heart sank, and my stomach churned when I looked down at the poor, gutted
man, the one with short white hair, whom I’d given the first gun to. Suddenly,
as if some alarm clock had stirred him from a deep sleep, he opened his white
eyes and growled. His cold, dead fingers grasped my ankle, and he bit into my
boot. I shot him in the head at close range, then finished off the others.
Val
patted me on the back. “We got most of ‘em, and the kids are okay.” She smiled
as her eyes lit up. “We saved them, Dean! Good thinking, grabbing those guns.”
Dead
zombies littered the area. A few cars inhabited by survivors took off without
even stopping to ask if we were okay or to thank us for risking our lives to
save theirs. I didn’t see the kids, so I assumed they were in some of those
cars. A few of the men and women who’d been fighting alongside us came over to
thank us, and Nick let them keep the guns and even gave them a little bit of
ammunition.
“Let’s
go!” Nick finally said, once everything had calmed down and we had a clear path
to drive our truck out.
Just as Val
and I were heading to the U-Haul, a red pickup swerved around the mangle of
twisted cars, heading back to the gated community we’d just come from. The
truck stopped, and the driver rolled down the window. The men and women sitting
in the back of the truck started shouting and flailing their arms, demanding
that the driver keep going. That was when I realized something was terribly
wrong. When I rushed over, the driver had a stern warning for me.
“Get in
your vehicle! Get back on the road!” he said.
I leaned
in. “What’s going on?”
Fear flashed
across his face. “More of those things, that’s what! A whole horde is coming,
and there’s no way you can fight them off, guns or not.”
Chapter 3
I
swallowed hard as the man in the truck told us about the army of zombies
heading our way.
“There
are hundreds of ‘em!” another man’s voice echoed from the cab. “We gotta get
outta here! Drive, would ya? Step on it, man!”
The
woman in the passenger seat leaned toward me, her eyes wide. “I’ve never seen
so many!”
“You
folks best just turn around and go back the way you came,” the driver advised.
“We don’t
have time for this!” somebody shouted from the back of the truck. “C’mon!”
“Let’s
go!” a woman frantically screamed.
“Well,
don’t say we didn’t warn ya,” the driver said, “but we gotta go now.” With that,
he pressed on the gas, and the pickup sped off.
My jaw
dropped.
“Can you
believe those people?” one of the men said, wiping red goop off his face. "I think they're exaggerating."
“Did you
see how scared they all looked?” I asked.
“What’s
another crowd of zombies? Heck, I’ll take them on blindfolded,” another man
said.
Nick met
his gaze. “Like you did with this group? If memory serves me correctly, we had
to help you and give you weapons.”
Lucas
and Val approached with a map and laid it out on the hood of the car.
“Maybe
we oughtta try a different route,” Val said, pointing.
“Right. Let’s
head this way,” Lucas offered, touching one of the alternate routes.
Nick
stared at the map. “Hmm. It’ll take us a bit out of the way, but it might help
us avoid another fight.”
“I say
it’s the safest way,” Val said.
As they quickly
discussed what route would work best, I gazed ahead through the pileup of cars.
Dozens of blurred shapes emerged. They were a good distance off, but their limp
and crooked gait gave them away. My heart raced when I realized the people in
the truck weren’t just feeding us a bunch of BS. I’d seen fear on people’s
faces, and they were clearly terrified for good reason. “Nick!” I shouted. “Something’s
coming, that horde the driver warned us about.”
Nick
shot the men a look. “That’s our cue, people! Let’s get outta here.”
The other
men and women men scrambled to their respective vehicles in a panic, and we all
piled in the U-Haul.
Nick
threw it in reverse and turned around. In seconds, he was flooring it, and we
sped back the way we’d come. When we came to a stop sign, Nick gripped the
steering wheel, as if he was pondering which direction to go.
“Go!”
Lucas said.
Nick
froze and shook his head.
“What’s
going on?” Lucas asked. “You have a better idea?”
“That
little fenced-in community we just left. We’ve gotta warn them. That herd will
be there in less than twenty minutes.”
“Is this
about Claire?” Lucas asked.
“I
promised her she’d be safe!” he retorted.
“Nick’s
right. We have to warn them,” Val said. “Those things will tear right through
those fences and gates like nothing.”
“Their
blockades are all right for keeping out stragglers and small groups,” Nick said,
staring ahead, “but that’s a huge throng of zombies. Those people will have no
chance. They’ll be ripped to shreds before they know what even
hit them.”
“They
deserve to be warned,” Val said. “They took us in when nobody else would. My conscience won’t let me just look the
other way, not when I know we have the power to save them. If we hurry, we’ll
still have time to get the heck outta Dodge.”
Like my
brother and sister, I couldn’t just let a community of people die without
sounding the alarm to give them a fighting chance. They had taken good care of
us while we were there, and they had every right to know that trouble was
coming their way. Moreover, I couldn’t imagine Claire facing a horrible fate,
being devoured by those zombies, especially after we had promised her that
she’d have safety and sanctuary there. That was, after all, why she wanted to
stay behind. “Val’s right. We can warn them and get out of there. We’ve got
wheels, and all the zombies have are dead, rotting feet and legs.”
“Fine,” Lucas
agreed. “I guess we can’t just stand by and watch those nasties make a buffet
out of that town. Let’s go.”
With a
jerk, Nick turned right and sped off.
My heart
was beating so fast I could hardly breathe. I knew we get there quicker than
the zombie onslaught, but it was still all nerve-racking. Nick slammed the
accelerator to the floor, and the engine of the moving truck groaned in protest
as he hit eighty miles an hour. The scenery blurred past us, and I fought to
stay calm. We couldn’t stay in the community long; we just had to warn the gatekeepers,
who would sound an alarm, and then we’d find Claire and haul our butts out of
there.
“We’re
here!” Nick said, screeching to a stop at the towering barbed-wire gates.
“Nick?”
a guard said. “What’s going on? I thought you were leaving town.”
“We
were, but we had to come back to warn you. You’re about to have a whole lotta
company—the smelly, dead kind.”
“What? A
whole horde?”
“Yup. I
saw them myself,” Nick said, “and they’ll be here any minute. You need to warn
everyone now!”
The
guard swallowed hard, then looked over at the others. “You heard the man! Don’t
just stand there. Go check it out and bring me back a full report. I need to
verify their claim,” he ordered.
The men
grabbed their weapons and scrambled to a nearby Jeep.
“You
really shouldn’t waste time,” I chimed in. “We’re telling you the truth, and
you need to warn everyone that—”
“Before
we incite a panic, we need concrete proof,” the man said, shaking his head.
“What’s
wrong with you, mister? Those zombies will be here by the time they get back,” Val
shrieked. “You need to warn people now.”
“She’s
right, buddy. You don’t have much time,” Lucas shouted, “and every second
counts.”
“Sound
the alarm,” Nick demanded. “The people can choose to stay or go, but let it be
their choice.”
“You
gotta give ‘em a fighting chance!” I said. “That’s why we came back here.”
He
looked at me, and I could tell by the expression on his face that he finally
believed us and was scared to death. He sucked in a deep breath as a droplet of
sweat rolled down his face.
“Please,”
I begged. “You can’t just let everyone die.”
“But I
don’t have orders to—”
“Screw
orders and protocol!” Val said. “You’re wasting precious seconds that might very well be the difference between life and death for everyone inside your
precious gates. Sound that alarm and sound it now!”
“I’m
comin’ in to get Claire,” Nick said, “and nobody’s going to stop me!”
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