As Nolan sees me looking over his shoulder and takes a sniff of the air before narrowing his eyes and sneering into a grow only to turn around and stand at the same time, bringing me with him, to my surprise, in a princess carry while cupping my legs and back with his arms as he jumps backs and growls louder.

“Wait Nolan!”

Feeling threatened, the special female zombie from before that had just appeared behind us hisses and barks with her second snout-mouth, ready to battle as much as Nolan.

“You two, stop!” I say, even though only one of them could understand me.

But of course my command has no impact in both of them as they grow at each other, parting their legs and ready to jump at each others throats.

I push against Nolan’s chest but he keep a strong grip on me and before I can even get free from Nolan’s hold Kira, as the good girl she is, goes to check the situation out and, unexpectedly, approaches the zombie lady to the point of almost touching her hand as she sniffs her, zero malice and tension on her.

And the zombie lady seems…somehow receptive.

Kira goes around her with her tail swinging about, and the snout face slowly relaxes as the zombie lady even brushes Kira’s face with the back of her hand, giving a relaxed aura even though it was hard to discern what passed over that undead partially human face of hers.

Great, a wolf guy and an undead lady, I have to start reading minds soon like this to be able to read them.

But seems that the special zombie reaction was what my brain needed to start function at full speed, like an engine, the gears turning and twisting and ideas surging with it.

And even though Nolan was still very aware of the lady zombie there, keeping her in his line of sight all the time, he knew we had too many problems at once to have the luxury of dealing with one at a time, looking at my glimmering eyes and knowing thought was going.

‘How are we going to deal with the werewolves?’ Nolan asks the same question that has been playing in my mind. How, only two of us, could face off a pack of wolves by ourselves?

‘Four of us.’ I hear Luna grow from the back of my mind. ‘They don’t have that’. She says, and it seems that wolf souls were a big deal when dealing with werewolves.

‘I should take the Lycan on.’ Suddenly Nolan says. ‘He is the strongest of them, and I’m dying to teach him a lesson…’

“No.” I say, making him look at me, confused, tilting his head sideways. “I can’t take all those wolves alone, but you can.”

‘But I-‘

“Even more he doesn’t want me dead, we have to take advantage of that, I can stall him for enough time until you get back.” The fact that I truly intended to battle him did not escape my lips, let’s just make Nolan feel like the prince in shining armor.

Luna lets out a sneer in my mind.

‘We have our own account to settle with that one.’ She says only to myself, and I could not agree more.

And I think I know, no, I think ‘we’ decided on what to do.

‘I’m there with you darling.’

“Nolan, I think I know what to do…” But even though some ideas came to mind, the dire situation we were in is a hard one…And I can see; or at least I think I can see; the same preoccupation in Nolan’s face.

They have a small group of fierce werewolves hunting us down, but what about us? We are outnumbered, totally at their mercy, unable to react… Or so they want to make us think as.

Because we actually have the advantage.

“They are overconfident and aren’t taking us seriously, they will blindly rush into danger without thinking twice because of it.” I say with Nolan paying close attention to my words. “Plus… they want me alive, so we can use that to our advantage as well.”

‘How?’ Asks Nolan, curious, making me smile.

“We need to get rid of their numerical advantage. They are overconfident, I saw they bash their way in a horde of zombies, we only need a packed place with the undead…”

‘I know a place.’ He says. ‘I found it a few moments ago, we could use there.’

“That’s great!” I say, tapping my finger on my chin as we keep talking about how to deal with the werewolves, once and for all.

As I proceed to explain what I had in mind the sky starts to turn orange, announcing the night that would come closing in in a few moments.

As of now, the only thing left to do was to find a safe place for Kira to stay in; she had gone back to sleep after her little walk; but we had no time for that, so there was only one thing I could think of, one solution that would seem rather odd if not given the circumstances and what I had seen with my own eyes.

I could only hope that I wasn’t handing Kira to her death, but we could not fight the werewolves with her in between, among the other zombies.

And even though the normal zombies did not care about animals and Kira may be able to trot about freely, I bet that this big city had at least a few Hunters around.

And they were the type to look for prey… and for their meat.

Some say that there were types of zombies made to infect, and others to simply hunt and destroy, somehow morphing out from the same virus into different combinations and types.

So I had to make a choice.

“Protect her, will you?” I turn towards the back and say that to the zombie, knowing how foolish I looked right now, talking to an undead.

The only answer I receive is the stare of two pairs of red eyes gazing at me with their mouths ajar.

…Is that a yes?

She starts moving then, making me and Nolan tense up, but she only goes and sits beside the sleeping Kira, watching her with her paralyzed face and froze up body.

…Creepy, but will do.

Lacking time to prepare better or to find a good place to hide Kira I can only hope that I had made the right choice beyond the mysteries that overshadow the special zombies and their lack or not of a conscious mind.

A conscious mind in a rotting decaying body… not the happiest situation to be in.

Me and Nolan walk out of the shop with a heavyweight on our hearts and with dreadful thoughts that I may not see Kira ever again, so instead of going out as if preparing ourselves to die I take a deep breath and try to calm down, looking out at the darkening sky and the beautiful clouds painted in orange and blue when something comes up that makes me turn around and look at Nolan who was just standing there.

 “Oh! I forgot something.” I say before dashing out, trotting back to Nolan’s side and suddenly kissing him on his furry cheek, having to stay on the tip of my toes to do so. “I like that wild look of yours, so don’t be ashamed of yourself alright?”

Blushing and not giving him time to react I turn around, stiffly walking and leaving him hanging when, still shocked, he brings his pawed-hand to his face, stunned, making so that I had to turn my face around to hide the silly smile that grows on my face with the increasing flustering of butterflies in my belly.