ROSES ARE RED

      VIOLETS ARE BLUE

      BE VERY AFRAID

      WE’RE COMING FOR YOU.

A NOTE FROM ALI

      Are you ready for this?

      The romance and sizzle...the betrayal...loss...pain...

      The end?

      I thought I was. I had begun comparing myself to a coin, with life on one side and death on the other. I’d felt as though I’d been tossed in the air, only to tumble down fast and hard. Which side I landed on would be totally up to fate. But I’ve learned not everything that happens is meant to be.

      Think about it. The fact that I ate a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast—not fate but hunger.

      The fact that I lost my mother, father and beloved little sister in a car crash—not fate but panic.

      The fact that four of my friends were gunned down in one night and two others were killed soon after—NOT FATE! Evil.

      Fate and meant to be come down to one thing. The tool we’ve been given to shape our destinies. Choice. Mine...yours...theirs. Good, bad. Ugly.

      Here’s mine: Months ago, I decided to join a crew of slayers and spend my nights fighting zombies.

      Yes. Zombies.

      These vile creatures live among us, invisible to the ungifted eye. They emerge at nightfall, hungry for human spirits, the essence of life. They feast, and they poison, and if ever you’re bitten, your spirit will rise, starved and ready to devour.

      I considered zombies the worst enemy ever to walk the earth.

      I was wrong.

      Humans can be more dangerous than monsters.

      There’s a company out there. Anima Industries. They control zombies, and they’ve decided slayers are a problem with only one solution: extermination.

      Now, slayers have a choice. Go underground...or go to war. In other words, hide our coins or toss them ourselves.

      We’ve lost so much already, and there are so few of us left. The smart thing to do is pack up and hide. Live to fight another day.

      Screw smart.

      We’re tossing. One way or another, we will destroy Anima for good—or they will destroy us. But this time, only one group is walking away.

      Our choice is made.

      Ready or not, here we come.

      See you on the other side,

      Ali Bell

Chapter 1

      UP IS DOWN AND

      DOWN IS UP

      “Dude. How about that one?” My best friend, Kat Parker, pointed toward the far corner, to a table occupied by three boys about our age.

      One guy was hot enough to melt a polar vortex. One wasn’t handsome in the traditional sense, but with his unusual chartreuse eyes, it hardly mattered. The third was amazingly rugged, with a fresh scrape on his cheek and scars on his knuckles.

      Well, well. We had finally found a smorgasbord of different flavored man-meat.

      “Perfect,” I said with a nod.

      “I don’t know.” Reeve Ankh, my other friend, surveyed the boys and chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m getting danger vibes from the one on the right.”

      The one on the right—Knuckle Scars. Excellent. Her dandar—danger radar—was working at optimal levels.

      In our little trio, she’d always been the voice of reason. Or, as Kat would say, “the voice of shut up and live a little.”

      My darling Kat meant it in the nicest way possible, of course. She simply had no filter. She always spoke her mind, always stood up for what she believed—that her way was the best way—and lived by the motto I’m On Board the Awesome Train and You Can Hop On or Get Run Over.

      Was it any wonder I loved her so much?

      “This is stupid, you guys.”

      The grumble came from Mackenzie Love. Once my archenemy, now one of my favorite pet projects.

      Most people were surprised by our sudden friendship, but I’d learned life could change in the blink of an eye.

      Everything could change in the blink of an eye.

      I accepted, and I rolled.

      “Suck it up.” Trina Brighton, the last member of our group, kicked Mackenzie under the table. “This was your idea.”

      “That’s right. You asked for our help, and we agreed to give it to you on one condition. That you do what we say, when we say.” Grinning her happy-kitten grin, Kat rubbed her hands together. While I had grown to like Mackenzie, she hadn’t. But she had softened...ish. “This is gonna be fun. For me!”

      Hated to admit it, but...yeah, it was gonna be fun for me, too.

      We were at Choco Loco, a chocolate bar where girls picked up treats and boys picked up girls. Not that I wanted to be picked up.

      I’d been going out with the drool-worthy Cole Holland—officially...again—for a little over a month. And, okay, yeah, there was a slight problem with our relationship. In the course of that month, we’d been on...give me a second to count them—zero dates. We’d had a total of...let’s see, let’s see—zero minutes alone. And we’d kissed...oh, I don’t know—zero times.

      Here are things that suck worse: _____________________.

      Okay, fine. There are a few things that suck worse. Like the time I was an all-you-can-eat dinner buffet for zombies. The time I battled the worst Z-poisoning in the history of ever. And my personal favorite, the time Anima Industries locked me away, electrocuted me, starved me and studied me like a freaking zoo animal.

      Considering all I’d been through, my love life should have been a sparkling diamond in a sea of coal. Or a sea of “Cole.” Har har. We had tried to get together, like, plan-everything-down-to-the-last-second tried, but each of our sneak-overs had encountered one teensy-weensy problem.

      Her name: Nana.

      Seriously, my grandmother had morphed into the Make-Out Police, and okay, okay, I didn’t really have to