The mood of the room soured.


    “NO! Why would you think..?” Eveth looked down at her exposed arms. “Oh, right, you’ve been out.”


    “She’s like a walking purifier.” Fyga yanked me back to a sitting position, then braced me against herself so I wouldn’t fall over. “Anything she touches…” The blue-eyed woman floated her hand up then mimicked an explosion with her fingers. “Poof.”


    “You what?” I struggled to undo the knot on the pouch drawstring.


    “You are as helpless as a newborn cat.” Fyga slipped both of her arms over my shoulders and undid the knot, then put the pouch back in my hand.


    “Thanks…” Her proximity was weirding me out, but I was glad for her help even if the fact that I needed it was infuriating. “What do you mean a purifier?” I’d wondered why she wasn’t wearing gloves or a jacket.


    “We figured it out on the first day when I was cleaning up.” Eveth looked away.


    “She couldn’t start a fire, so she pulled off her gloves to work the flint.” Fyga chuckled as she leaned her chin on my right shoulder. “Should have seen the look on her face when the Zombie blood started hissing, then turned red.” She let out an exaggerated laugh. “Little miss jumped up and started dancing cause she thought she was on fire!”


    “I didn’t..!” Eveth turned to glare at the other woman.


    “It’s fine.” Val put her hand on Eveth’s arm and there was a hissing noise as the purple blood came in contact with the blonde Touched’s skin.


    “Eveth gave me her jacket and gloves since she doesn’t need them and mine were destroyed.” She nodded at my bare chest. “Like yours.”


    “We’re gonna have to get you some clothes.” Fyga tsked. “Can’t have these Human women turning into Zombies because they can’t resist such a fine specimen on display.”


    “Fig.” Val shook her head. “Would you stop teasing him?”


    “What? He doesn’t mind.” Fyga leaned around me so she could look at my face. “You don’t mind do you?”If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    “I…” A piece of dried fruit got shoved in my mouth.


    “See? He doesn’t mind.” Fyga patted my cheek as I tried not to choke on the food that she’d forced on me.


    Val just shook her head. I heard Eveth try to hide a soft laugh behind her hand.


    I swallowed the fruit as I turned to glare at the woman behind me.


    Fyga batted her eyes at me, which looked weird through a pair of goggles.


    “Anyway.” Val pulled off her gloves, then her jacket. “When do you think you’ll be ready to go out there?” She nodded at Eveth. “The Zombies are running from me, which makes it harder to hunt them down, so I’ve been trying to rescue anyone that’s still outside the barrier while Eve is trying to clear the docks. Byler, since you’re up, we can start using you and Fig to clear the docks with Eve and as soon as we can get that sector sealed off, the three of you can move to the next one.”


    So many thoughts were swirling around in my head. The main one centered around our timetable. I’d been out for four days, which meant we’d lost a week. It would take us over two weeks of walking to get to Port Town since we had Ziggy. We could probably make it there in three days if we went by ship. But we needed a ship for that. I knew the people in Port Reggo wouldn’t be able to clear the city without a lot more people dying, but there wasn’t a ship and it was going to take us days to purge the city. If we got delayed anywhere along the way, he’d be looking for us and we wouldn’t be there.


    That reminded me. Ziggy wasn’t here.


    “What happened to Ziggy?” My heart started beating faster as I waited for them to respond.


    “He’s in the other tent.” Eveth nodded to her right. “We didn’t want him to stay in here with all the blood, but figured he’d be close enough that Fyga could get to him fast enough if something went wrong.”


    “So what are we going to do with him while the four of us go out?” I found myself leaning back into Fyga. My eyes were also getting heavy, which was strange because it was the first time since I’d ascended that I’d really felt sleepy.


    “We can leave him with Miss Charlandene.” Val said the name with more ease than I’d be able to repeat it.


    “Who?” I glanced at Eveth who had grabbed clothes from the bag she’d been looking through and moved to the tent flaps.


    “She’s the school teacher the two of you saved.” Eveth motioned for Val to follow her. “Let’s get cleaned up.”


    “You should still use fire.” I looked at Val. “You don’t want to infect any of the Humans.”


    “Don’t worry, we’ve been doing this for the last two days. We know what we’re doing.” The redheaded woman patted my leg, then stood up and followed the younger woman out of the tent.


    I wanted to point out that two days of experience paled to the decade plus that I had accumulated, but I was too tired. I needed to sleep, then maybe in the morning I’d be strong enough to chastise them about how reckless they were being.


    Right now I was going to get some sleep.