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Chapter Ten (Louis's POV)

I couldn't feel my body. My thoughts were numbed. All I could see was darkness. I stayed like that for a while, as if I were asleep. I didn't think. Didn't breathe. Then I was falling. Falling, falling, falling, until my eyes shot open and my senses awakened. The first thing I was a aware of was that it was raining, and I was sopping wet. I was laying on the pavement, looking up at the rain drops sparkling from above, which were reflecting yellow light from the lamp post towering over me.

Then I realized that I wasn't breathing. I inhaled deeply. Too deeply. My throat and lungs burned from the sudden intake of air. I sat up and had a coughing fit. Then I started gagging on whatever I was coughing up. I spat on the ground next to where I was sitting. Phlegm? No. I looked closer. Blood.

My heart rate quickened. What had happened? Where was Liam? Where was Charity and her friend? Why couldn't I remember a damn thing?

I squinted into the darkness and pouring rain for a sign of any of them. I spotted the shape of a human lying a few feet away from me. I got up on shaky knees to investigate, but my prosthetic leg gave out and I fell back down. I caught myself before I hit the wet asphalt again. I grunted, and tried to stand. I brushed wet hair out of my eyes, then walked a little ways before I almost fell down again. This time, my foot had caught on something. I swore, and felt around for whatever I had tripped on.

It was round and squishy and... hairy? I held it up to the light and once I could tell what it was, I threw it back on the ground. It was a head. Everything came rushing back to me; the zombie, the dying girl, Liam and I rushing over to help...

Oh no. What had we done?

I scrambled over to the heap and saw that it was the dying woman turned on her back. She was very still, and lying in a small pool of blood. My stomach lurched, but not in disgust. In hunger. I turned her over by her shoulder, uncovering the horrifying state of her body. Her face was damaged beyond recognition, and her intestines were falling out of her abdomen. Her head was barely staying connected to her body, and wherever there happened to be skin, it was perforated with bite marks. I was revolted by my urge to eat what was left of her. Did I do this?

I felt a hand on my shoulder and briskly turned around. It was Liam.

"Oh, thank God," I said. He looked a bit worse for wear; he was drenched and his clothes were torn and blood soaked. I reckoned that I didn't look much better. We eyed each other, taking in one another's disheveled appearances.

"What happened to us?" He asked. "Why are we covered in blood?" I pointed down to the dead girl without taking my eyes off Liam. He looked, and I could see the hunger in his eyes; the same hunger I felt when I looked at her. He faced me again, mouth agape, white as a sheet. We stared down at her, letting the rain wash all feeling out of our skin. I wasn't bothered by the cold.

After a while, I asked, "Where are Charity and Kiara?" He faced me, terrified.

"We... We didn't-"

"No! No, of course not!" But I wasn't so sure. Did we hurt them, or did they run away? They had every reason to, after all. Liam and I had lost control. We had gone to fight the zombie, thinking that we could overpower it because we had supernatural strength, but we weren't strong enough to withstand the smell of freshly spilled human blood. Charity and Kiara probably saw us feed on her and high tailed it right out of there. I couldn't blame them, but we had to find them before word of any of this got out.

"Liam, did you happen find out where Kiara and Charity live?"

"No... But she did give me her phone number. Should I ring her?"

"Yeah." Liam bent over to shield his phone from the rain and dialed a number from an ink smudged napkin. His face was tightened in concentration.

"Can you read that alright, mate?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah. I think I got it." He pressed call, and we waited.

I heard someone on the other end pick up. "Hello, you have reached Nando's. How can we-" Liam hung up.

"Maybe it was a six..." Liam said, holding the napkin closer to his face.

"Now I'm starting to think it isn't a good idea to call them, mate. They wouldn't want to hear what we have to say." Liam nodded.

"Yeah. Better we do this in person."

"Okay. But what are we going to do with the bodies?" We both looked down and the decapitated zombie and the dead girl who now resembled a piece of meat more than anything. "Shall we dump them in the Serpentine in Hyde Park? Or maybe the Thames?"

"No. I think she needs a proper burial. As does the zombie. It isn't his fault that he is what he is." I never thought that I could ever relate to a zombie. But there it was.

"Right then. So Old Paddington Cemetery?" I asked.

"Old Paddington Cemetery it is. You grab the girl, I'll get the zombie. Then we'll find Kiara and Charity. Fix this whole mess."