~Author's Note~
Hey guys! So this story is a little out there. I'm also going to be upfront about this and let everyone know that this is a zeddison story that turns into a wyaddsion (wyatt x addison) story. Now I know we all love zeddison and that nothing could ever break them up, I swear I'm with you guys lol, but Wyatt's been looking kinda fly in some of the pictures, and in another world, maybe him and Addison could be a thing.
So this story explores a plot everyone's probably seen a few times on here by now (Zed's Z-Band goes haywire and Addison's able to bring him back because of true love) but I wanted to twist that around with this story and throw in Wyatt acting as Addison's friend, and really look into the mental and physical impacts of things just going wrong. What if Addison's love isn't enough to bring Zed back and that kind of stuff.
As you guys can see this definitely turned, um, massive, so I hope some of you guys give the story a chance! I also wanted to post this before the movie because none of us know what Wyatt is really going to be like, and if it turns out that I'm completely off and he's completely OOC in this, I can at least use the excuse that I wrote this before the new movie came out, lol.
Title Inspiration comes from 'P.S. I Still Love You' which came out on Netflix today but that I'm not going to get to watch until tomorrow, but this story isn't going to be anything like those movies, I was just messing around with titles and it stuck. Everyone is seniors in this, aka everyone's eighteen, because I like to give myself more challenges and in case I didn't make it clear enough!
Anyways, I hope those of you that give this a chance enjoy it, and dropping a review would make my night!
.
.
p.s. i (don't) love you
.
.
She's walking out of math class when he catches her around the waist and pulls her off to the side, her back hitting the row of pastel lockers with a thump, his lips locking with hers. She smiles into the kiss and curls a hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. His hands slide down from her waist to grip at her hips as he kisses back with just as much fervor; he squeezes her hips and goes to slip his hands just a little lower—
"Nice show," Wyatt chimes as he walks up, hands in pockets and a smirk already in place.
Zed breaks the kiss with an annoyed groan, his forehead falling against Addison's, the latter chuckling quietly at her boyfriend's actions.
"I wouldn't call it nice," Eliza deadpans as she walks up beside the werewolf, rolling her eyes.
Wyatt's smirk doesn't waver. "Yeah, you're right. If it was two girls instead you'd call it great."
Eliza fixes him with a stare that could kill so Addison decides to break things up before they went too far. Wyatt was far too good at getting on people's nerves, especially zombies, so if she didn't intervene, there was a good chance he would end up as a midday snack.
(Zed's threatened so on more than one occasion.)
She stands on her tiptoes so she can give Zed a final kiss before slipping out of her boyfriend's arms, grabbing Wyatt by the wrist and pulling him around the corner.
"Do you always have to start something as soon as you walk up when it comes to Eliza?" She questions with a knowing glare as she turns around to face him, releasing his wrist.
He shrugs, "She's easy to mess with."
She shakes her head, "It's been three years. Don't you ever get tired of it?"
He looks taken aback. "Get tired of messing with people?" He asks dramatically. "Never. It's my best trait." Addison has trouble holding back her smile and sighs when he grins. "How was math?"
"Boring, until—"
"You and Zed had a free-to-watch show outside of class? Good thing it was free because I'm broke."
She reaches out and smacks him in the shoulder, causing him to chuckle and take a step back to dodge her next hit. "It was sweet, he surprised me. I actually thought it was you for a second. It seemed like something you'd do."
The mood in the air shifts.
Wyatt pretends that it doesn't affect him and he shrugs as nonchalantly as possible. Addison sighs, twisting her hands. "Sorry. It was a joke, I wasn't thinking."
He shakes his head and his next smile doesn't reach his eyes. It's the first thing Addison notices and she curses herself inside.
Way to go, she thinks as she reaches for his hand but he shoves them in his pockets before she can do anything about it.
"I uh, told you, sophomore year. As long as you guys are together, you're off-limits. I'm not going to pine after you or be that guy. Feel free to joke about it."
"Your feelings aren't a joke to me, Wyatt. I'm sorry I brought it up at all. I love Zed but you're my friend too. How you feel matters to me."
He nods, and his eyes are lighter again.
Clumsily, she changes the subject and feels awkward doing so.
But Zed's right around the corner and the last thing she wants is him to stumble upon Wyatt talking about his feelings for someone who's already taken, and Addison doesn't know how he would react.
He knows all of it, has known for as long as she has, but it hasn't been brought up in a while. She's not sure how he would react now, or if he still feels the same about it as he did years ago, but she doesn't want to find out.
"How's the rest of the pack doing? Your sister?"
"They're doing okay."
Wyatt was never one for fighting.
The pack was welcomed after a while but some accepted the offer, and some didn't. His sister was among the ones who didn't. She held her grudges resolutely, leaving Wyatt alone in Seabrook.
He wasn't bothered by it too much, after all he still had Wynter, and a few of his other packmates with him, and Addison—and surprisingly Bree and Bonzo who became very quick friends with Wynter once they got to know her, and through that him, too.
Addison did her best to check up on him and ask how Willa was doing but he tried to keep things as minimal as possible. It wasn't her job to worry, especially over him.
"I don't know. She didn't show up for our last meet-up so . . . "
He trails off and Addison feels ten times worse for even asking in the first place. She was full of all the wrong things to say today. "I'm sorry," she offers quietly, and he goes to say something like I'm sorry too but pushes the words down.
Before Wyatt can say something else, Zed comes barreling around the corner, followed by Eliza. Addison's face lights up when she sees him. It's almost blinding to Wyatt—who has trouble keeping his lips out of a frown because of the interruption.
"Hey," Zed says with one of those goofy smiles of his—Wyatt wants to roll his eyes but he refrains from that too—and Addison smiles wide.
"Hi."
Zed moves closer so that he's next to Addison and then slings an arm around her shoulders. She looks back to Wyatt, looking so, so much happier.
There's a pang deep in his heart. He always knew she deserved the world and more, and he knew he would never be able to give it to her.
At least Zed could, and always was.
"Did you have any plans later?" She asks him, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Eliza giving him the look. Zed's surprisingly neutral about it, but he was always better at hiding his feelings for him than Eliza was any given day.
He focuses back on Addison, who's brighter than the sun at that moment, Zed next to her, and something tells him to lie and leave her be.
He listens, against his better judgment. "I promised Wynter I'd help her out with some of her homework tonight," he lies with his signature smirk back in place, "so you're off the hook today."
Addison rolls her eyes, "Not funny," she says, "you're my friend, Wyatt, like it or not."
"I don't like it," Eliza mutters and Zed elbows her in the side. She glares at him and he glares back, the two of them communicating silently to each other in that way only best friends can.
Wyatt's eyes move back over to Addison, and before he can object she's moving forwards and hugging him. Her head comes to rest against his chest as she wraps her arms around him, and Wyatt can see Zed looking over at him, his expression careful.
Wyatt wishes he could read him better.
With a steady exhale he slowly wraps his own arms low around her waist, careful with where his hands end up. They stay like that for a moment, and Wyatt feels like his skin is on fire, or that his heart is going to burst open any second now.
Addison always does this to him and three years later he's still unable to stop it. He hates that he can't, hates how he loves her, hates how he can't get past it. He doesn't hate that he can't have her because she deserves better than him.
He's been a monster since birth; Zed's nothing but a zombie.
There's a difference that he can't change and that's why he can't bring himself to hate Zed either. It wouldn't be fair and Wyatt's not going to hold a grudge over nothing. That's not him.
"See you tomorrow?" She whispers, bringing him out of his thoughts.
He clears his throat and nods, even daring to go as far as resting his chin on top of her hair for a second. "Always," he murmurs, slowly pulling back. She glances up at him; he swears his heart stops. His mouth runs dry and his brain shouts at him to say something!
"Addy we're going to be late to class," and suddenly Zed's touching at her elbow.
Addison waves her goodbye as the three head off towards their next class.
Wyatt watches them go, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Zed leans down and kisses Addison's hair, whispering into her ear. She giggles and stops walking so she can reach up, grab him by the shirt and pull him into a loving kiss. Eliza stands off to the side of them, a soft smile pulling at her lips.
The bell rings and he exhales, releasing a breath he didn't even know he was holding. She's everything to him and she doesn't even know, or at least, she only knows half of it. Wyatt's not that guy and he hasn't been that guy for three years.
He's her friend, she's his, and that's enough.
He just wishes that his heart would agree.
They're halfway through their surprise quiz when Wyatt hears something that he shouldn't.
He's stumped on an open-ended question and is tapping his pencil up and down on the desk, much to the annoyance of Wynter next to him. She scowls and throws her eraser at him, smacking him in the arm, and the pencil stills. He turns to her, about to whisper a snappy remark, but before he can he hears a gut-wrenching scream.
The shrill sound causes him to freeze, the pencil falling from his hand, his heartbeat beginning to race.
He's still frozen in shock when Wynter grabs him by the shoulder and when his eyes snap up to hers it's with growing dread that he realizes they were the only ones who had heard anything.
"Did you hear that?" She asks him, her voice reflecting the same panic he's feeling.
He nods, lost for words, and she's still gripping his shoulder when the teacher clears her throat from the front of the room. Wyatt blinks and glances around, only then noticing that everyone's staring at them.
Wynter is halfway out of her seat because she had reached for him and some of the cheerleaders in the back are snickering. The teacher looks annoyed, peering over the rim of her glasses, her lips twisted.
She fixes Wynter with a cold stare, "Is there something you would like to share with everyone? Or is disrupting the entire class something you do for fun?"
Wyatt goes to open his mouth and say something not so nice but he's interrupted by the sharp wail of an alarm.
"That's the Z-Alert," Wynter whispers, looking back at Wyatt.
Immediately the classroom erupts in movement, some students pushing each other out of the way to race out the door, others hiding by the teacher's desk. She's shouting something, trying to keep everyone together, but her words fall on deaf ears.
Other students are rushing down the hall and Wyatt, using his werewolf-hearing, can pick up bits and pieces of information, jumping from one panicked voice to the next, and Wynter picks up on what he's doing, squeezing his shoulder in reassurance as everything descends into chaos around them. "What do you hear?"
"—come on we have to go—"
"—something's happening in the gym—"
"—stay as far away from there as possible, I'm serious—"
"—there's a rouge zombie in the—"
"—Addison's boyfriend—"
"—out of nowhere he—"
Wyatt's heart stops. No. No. Anyone but her. Not her.
Wynter squeezes his shoulder again, "Wyatt?" He stands up so fast that he knocks over the desk and she scrambles backward to avoid going down with it. "What the hell, Wyatt?" She growls, but when he looks at her, breathing heavy and fear so clearly written in his eyes, she feels her anger evaporate.
"We have to help," he breathes, already stumbling towards the doorway.
She nods, uneasiness about the entire situation they've found themselves in shooting through her, and out the door they go. Wyatt picks up speed once they're out in the hallway, Wynter right on his heels, and as everyone runs past them, they push forward.
She realizes they're heading to the gym after the second turn, the students around them growing thinner and thinner as they get closer, and an ear-piercing scream cuts through her head as they pass the final row of lockers.
Wyatt slams open the double doors with a shoulder, his eyes glowing yellow, a roar ripping from his throat.
The sudden sound is enough to startle everyone still in the room as they look to the door in horror, but the rogue zombie simply lifts his head from his prey and growls right back, the low sound echoing through the gymnasium.
Everything moves in slow motion as Wynter side-steps Wyatt so she can see what's going on, and she can't stop the gasp that escapes her or the awful feeling of her stomach dropping.
There's a full class huddled in the top corner of the bleachers, the teacher in front, student clutching student behind him.
Beside them sits a group of zombies who look absolutely horrified as they stare at the scene below them. A few of them have their hands over their mouths, looking sick, but still unable to pull their eyes away.
At the bottom of the bleachers Eliza is laying on her side, head half lifted, blood dripping from her right eyebrow to the middle of her forehead. Her bottom lip is split and she's cradling the arm that holds her Z-Band close to her chest. The assistant teacher is crouched beside her, a hand on her shoulder, keeping her down, and Wynter's never seen somebody look so heartbroken.
In the middle of the floor lies Addison writhing underneath a rogue zombie that resembles Zed. Her shirt is torn clean through on her left side, a bloody mess of cloth and ripped skin, and there's more blood smeared on the front of her shirt.
There's a mess of shredded skin and blood on her right arm. Above her, his hands shaking, his chin red, his veins black, is no other than Zed, whose eyes hold no recognition.
Wyatt's moving before Wynter can stop him.
"Wyatt, no!"
She charges after him but he reaches Zed before she reaches him, his fangs already bared. He roars, louder than she's ever heard, and aims for his throat. In the extra second it takes her to catch up and pull him by the back of his shirt, she's already far too late.
Snapping.
Cracking.
A voice, muffled. Another voice, muffled.
She feels like she's underwater, continuously sinking.
A car door slams and she feels light as someone picks her up under the arms and carries her away. There's a screech of metal and more voices that she can't quite hear. Scribbling, signing, mumbling, and then she's on something soft.
Tapping, clinking; tones so muffled she can't distinguish what they are.
Beeping. Hissing. Trouble breathing.
Paddles pushed against her skin, cold to the touch, warm to the heart.
Pressure all around her, closing her in. Bringing her back from the abyss of the deep sea, clearing her senses as she floats back towards shore. There's squeezes to her shoulders, hands, and softer touches to her cheeks and forehead.
Kisses are pressed to her forehead too. Chapped lips, soft lips, trembling lips.
It's still lonely.
Anchormen chatting about the weather, talk show hosts snorting with laughter. Arms encircling her, lifting her under the arms again, holding her close. Another car door slamming. Bumps. Home—
A growl. Low. Inhuman.
Monstrous.
Addison wakes up with a loud gasp, her heart beating rapidly.
She goes to sit up, stopped by a fiery pain in her side. She cries out, loud enough to catch the attention of her parents downstairs, who take the steps two at a time and enter her bedroom a few moments later, worried looks on both their faces.
"Addison," her mom whispers as she moves forward and takes a seat on the side of her bed, brushing some of her daughter's hair out of her eyes as she goes. "You're awake. Are you okay, baby?"
Her father takes a seat behind her mother, smiling weakly.
"You scared us for a second there, princess," he says, his voice a quiet rumble against the silence of her room. Addison's eyebrows knit in confusion. Her parents haven't used nicknames with her since she was a child.
Something wasn't right but . . . she tries to think back, recall what had happened to make her parents act like this, but her brain feels fuzzy, her memories absent.
"Mom, Dad," she starts, and is surprised by how hoarse her voice comes out.
Her dad reaches over and gently squeezes her knee, "I'll go get you some water."
He stands and makes his way out of the room, his feet thumping against the wood of the stairs as he goes. Addison looks back to her mother, and the sad look on her face makes her feel uneasy.
"Mom," she whispers, the words easier on her throat that way, "how did I scare you?"
The last she remembered she was at school, not at home. The last thing she remembered was Zed leaving a kiss in her hair, wrapping his arm around her, and her whispering four words back.
They were waiting for the teacher to finish calling roll before they could go get changed for gym. Eliza was more snarky than usual because of Wyatt's comment that morning. She doesn't remember getting changed or actually doing anything for class, which was slightly freaking her out.
"Why am I not at school?" Her mother's cheeks look red, and around her eyes looks swollen, like she's been crying too much. Addison's breath leaves her.
Why can't she remember? What was going on?
"Mom?" She asks again, her voice shaking.
Her mother reaches over and takes one of Addison's hands in both of hers, holding tight. "Oh my baby," she murmurs, smiling sadly, "what do you remember?"
"Nothing. I—I remember being in gym class with Zed and Eliza, waiting for the teacher to finish calling roll but after that, nothing."
Missy nods, lifting one of her hands to wipe away the tear slipping from her eye. She returns it to Addison's, squeezing gently in what could be a reassuring way, if Addison knew what she was trying to reassure her about.
"Why are you crying Mom?"
"Baby, there was an accident."
Addison stiffens, her blood running cold. There was an accident she had no memory of? "What kind of accident?"
Another tear, this time accompanied by a sniffle. "Something happened with Zed's Z-Band, baby. Your father is still investigating and we don't really know all the details either because we weren't there but . . . something happened with his Z-Band and he went offline."
Why didn't she remember?
"It was bad, baby. He went after you and he—"
Her mom can't finish the sentence, turning away in a poor attempt at hiding her tears, which are now steadily falling.
Dale re-enters the room then, carrying a cup of ice water and a pack of saltine crackers. He hands them over to Addison, who takes both appreciatively, before taking a step back and resting a hand on his wife's shoulder.
"I wasn't sure if you were hungry, once the pain medication wears off you'll probably be starving, according to the doctor."
She takes a sip of her drink, her throat immediately feeling a million times better afterward. She places both items on the nightstand next to her bed.
"Thanks Dad," she says, able to speak at a normal volume again.
"Of course, princess."
She looks back at her mother, awaiting the rest of the story. Inside she's freaking out. Her heart feels like it's being stretched painfully in different directions and the fact that she can't remember any of it is weighing on her heavily.
Dale offers Missy a clump of tissues from his pocket, which he must have grabbed while he was downstairs, and she holds one up and blows her nose before using another to dab at her eyes.
"Baby," she whispers, picking her next words very carefully, "he went after you and he didn't stop."
Addison feels tears, sudden and painful in more ways than one, prick at her eyes. "I—I—don't—"
Her father clears his throat, his voice rough.
"After the Z-Alert was pulled, three units were dispatched, and by the time they got there well," he pauses, struggling for the words; "Wyatt saved you, from what I was told. I was called once the units realized you were my daughter. By the time your mother and I got there, Zed and Wyatt were both gone. You were with Eliza and another werewolf I can't remember the name of—"
"Wynter," she supplies in a whispered guess, because she didn't know any other werewolves and she knew Wyatt wasn't close with any of them like how he was with Wynter.
Addison had only had a handful of conversations with Wynter over the years, full of bared teeth and gritted words, but she was good at reading people, and she knew Wynter was harmless on the inside, especially to those she cared about.
(Not that Addison thought she was included in that but she knew Wyatt was which meant she was probably half-safe.)
"Yes, Wynter, that's it. They had you and we thanked them and took you directly to the hospital. You were there for the rest of the day, and they released you about two hours ago."
Glancing towards the window reveals that her shades are in fact pulled, so instead she directs her eyes to the digital clock on her nightstand.
It was almost eleven-thirty at night, and she didn't have any memory of the past day.
Her stomach rolls with the new information, and she doesn't even realize that there are tears running down her cheeks until her mother's wiping them away with a tissue.
Her dad continues, still holding tight to her mother's shoulder. "There was a good amount of damage to your arm and your side. You got stitches in both, and there will probably be scarring but you will heal."
"Baby," her mom suddenly blubbers, leaning forward and pulling her into as gentle of a hug as she can, "we were so worried about you."
Addison carefully wraps her arms around her mom's back, ignoring the twinge of pain at the small movement.
"I'm okay, Mom," she mumbles against her shoulder, her eyes slipping closed. "I'm okay."
Dale moves in to join the hug, wrapping his arms around them both, squeezing them as tight as he can, still unbelievably relieved that their daughter is alive and with them.
If things had turned out different . . . he doesn't know what he would've done.
They stay like that until Missy's breathing evens out again, until Dale feels whole again, and then they're pulling back, each parent giving her a kiss on the forehead.
Her father turns on her television and her mother fletches the remote, passing it over to her.
"If you need anything at all, call for us, okay? Doctor's orders are no strenuous activities and you'll get both sets of stitches out in ten days. But for the next few days, we want you to take it easy."
Addison nods and her mother gives her one last hug. "I love you, Addison."
"I love you too, Mom. I promise I'm okay."
Physically, somewhat. Mentally, definitely not, but her mom didn't need to know that right now.
Her mother sniffles and stands, her father following behind her as they both head towards the door. Her father turns around with his hand on the golden knob, giving his daughter a smile.
"Love you, princess,"
"Love you too, Dad."
He pulls the door shut, leaving it slightly ajar, and Addison's left alone.
She exhales unsteadily as soon as her parents are gone, still trying to process everything.
Zed attacked her? She couldn't bring him back? She wasn't enough to bring him back? Her heart, already so fractured, breaks at the thought. And Wyatt . . . ?
Were they both okay?
She didn't even think to ask her parents, her thoughts too scattered to form a coherent one.
Blinking down at the hand holding the remote, she sees a white piece of gauze wrapped around the middle of her lower arm, padded underneath by thick surgical pads and soft cotton.
She turns her arm back and forth, makes a fist, waves it around, to see if there's any pain like there is in her side.
There's some, but it's not anywhere near as bad as her side feels right now, even with the pain medication that's still in her system.
She exhales again, her breathing slowly evening out, her mind still buzzing with questions.
She decides to focus instead on the television.
Flipping to a random channel that's playing Friends, she turns down the volume and places the remote on her nightstand. She grabs the pack of crackers and undoes the plastic, slowly making her way through three before feeling full.
She places the crackers back on her nightstand and is turning her attention back to the television when her window pops open with a soft click.
Her head turns to the window, her heart suddenly racing. She almost calls for her parents but then she realizes who it could be.
Zed.
Her heart aches at the thought. He could explain to her what had really happened and why. He could crawl into bed with her and hold her. He could—
Another emotion she's never had when it came to Zed follows with it.
Fear.
Fear so powerful that when the culprit pushes aside the shade she's already opening her mouth to call for her dad.
Thankfully, his face is illuminated by the blueish hues of the television and the moon behind him before any sound leaves her.
He smirks at her before climbing in the rest of the way, quietly pulling the window shut behind him as he stretches.
"That's quite the climb," he comments offhandedly as he leans back against the wall beside the window that's closer to her bed.
He crosses his arms, and she sees his eyes scan her up and down in search of injuries and linger a second too long on the white covering her right arm before snapping back to her face.
"Did your parents put you in this room on purpose so that no unruly boy toys could climb up here?"
She feels tears fill her eyes at seeing him okay and in front of her.
She wasn't sure what she was expecting when her father said they had both gotten into it and both taken away. But he was okay.
He was okay and making jokes that definitely weren't appropriate for the moment, which meant he was more than okay.
"I don't think they took into account unruly werewolves," she says softly, aiming for a joke, but falling short because of the tears now slipping down her cheeks.
Wyatt's expression shifts to a concerned one, but he doesn't make any attempt to move toward her, which wasn't like him. "Addison—"
"Why are you all the way over there?"
She pats the empty space of bed that her mom was sitting on earlier, "Come here," but at her request he looks away from her and down at his shoes.
"Wyatt," she whispers, desperate for the contact, desperate to know that he's real and really okay because she feels like she really can't trust her brain right now, "please,"
"I don't know if you're scared of me because I'm a monster." He finally says, keeping his tone low.
He's still not looking at her and Addison wonders how much more she can take right now, after all of this.
Why would she be scared of him?
He was harmless, so harmless he wouldn't hurt a fly, and she knew that, has known that since he refused to take part in Willa's uprising back during freshman year.
"I could never be scared of you." She says, as genuine as he's ever heard her. It hurts him hearing her so certain.
He's quiet for a long time.
"You said that about Zed and look how that turned out."
Addison doesn't answer, looking down at her hands. Wyatt curses under his breath, feeling more horrible than he had two seconds before. He never went about things right.
He finally lifts his head, looking over at her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
"No," she whispers, "you did."
He wants to move toward her but he's more scared than he lets on. A zombie had lost control and the Z-Band hadn't done anything. If he lost control, there was nothing stopping him from—
His stomach tosses around his dinner and he stops the next thought before he sees it a second time.
"I did say that about Zed, from the first moment I met him."
Addison pulls at a loose string on her blanket, tugging more and more string free as she goes. "I believed it. With all my heart."
She starts to twist the string around one of her fingers, tight enough to cut off circulation, continuing to pull and pull and pull.
"I also believed with all of my heart that I would be able to bring him back if he ever went rouge. I believed our love would be enough."
Wyatt can see the white line the string is making around her finger, and the bright red the top of her finger is turning.
"Addison," he whispers, lowering his arms and taking a step towards her, "I want to, Addison, I do."
Her eyes meet his and his heart, there's not even an emotion to describe how pained his heart feels at that moment. "But I'm scared," he admits, "I'm scared that I'll—"
His voice cuts out and there he stands, half a step away from her side, yet still too far.
He wants to grab her hand and undo the string, hold it tightly in his instead.
It's funny, in an ironic kind of way, how seeing what Zed had done had given Wyatt more self-doubts than he's ever had in his entire life. But he feels as though he can't push past them this time and that one wrong step will mean Addison's demise.
It's terrifying, how much a feeling, a worry, can control you.
Addison tugs the string even tighter and Wyatt worries that she won't stop until she feels that kind of numb all over.
"Addison please," he murmurs, his voice rough even when it's soft, "please stop."
"I can't remember anything." She confesses quietly. "I don't—I remember sitting with Zed and Eliza one moment and nothing after."
Wyatt watches her, his eyes flicking between her face and her hands. "Do you want me to tell you?" He asks as Addison twirls another piece of string around her finger.
She shakes her head. "No. I want to remember."
"That might take a while,"
"How long until you can get past this?"
Wyatt doesn't have an answer for her. "I don't know."
Finally, after what feels like far too long to him, she pulls the string wrapped around her finger the opposite way to unwrap it.
It falls off easily, like it was never there in the first place, the only indication that it was is the white ring towards the top of her finger.
Wyatt feels better after she pulls on the string, severing it's connection to the quilt and then drops it to the floor beside her bed.
He wants to grab the string and throw it out the window so that it's nowhere near her.
For a few moments the only sound in the room is the soft hum of the television, the live studio audience laughing at something one of the characters had said.
"I guess that might take a while too," Addison says, meeting his eyes once more. He feels more alive under her gaze than under the full moon. "But know that I'm not scared of you, Wyatt, and I never could be."
The night ends with Wyatt nodding, the smallest tilt of his head, and him slipping back out the window, barely making a sound as he disappeared into the night.
Addison stays awake for a while, just thinking, before sleep finally claims her.
Wyatt visits her after dinner the next night, her parents downstairs dining on desert as Addison slowly makes her way back to her room, insistent that she can make it there herself.
He's waiting for her when she pushes open her door, his butt firmly planted on the end of her bed.
She can't help but smile when she sees him sitting there, smirk and all. She leans on her door frame, only slightly exhausted from the climb, crossing her arms.
His smirk widens at the raised eyebrow she gives him.
"Are you going to climb through my window every night?" She teasingly asks him, taking a step into her bedroom and pulling the door shut behind her, careful not to let it slam.
He shrugs, trying—and failing—to look disinterested as he directs his attention to his nails. "How are you feeling?"
"Like my side was torn open," she says dryly, sighing. "I feel sore and reaching for things hurts but other than that I'm okay."
Addison advances towards her bed and Wyatt stands up, moving to the other side of the room. She watches him, her heart filled with all kinds of different emotions.
Her parents had shown more love to her now than they had in years, and though her mom made sure to hug her every time she went to leave the room, it wasn't parental love she needed.
She felt lost and unsure.
She felt like she couldn't trust the things happening in front of her, or trust herself to remember them.
She just wanted something real.
She wanted arms wrapped around her, arms that told her she was real and that none of this was made up.
Unintentionally, she starts to pick at the gauze covering her arm, Wyatt's eyes flicking over to her in concern.
She takes a seat on the corner of her bed, lost to her thoughts.
With the way her parents had been acting, Addison was feeling more and more like she was stuck in a nightmare disguised as a dream rather than reality.
Wyatt admitting that he was scared to be near her, hug her, touch her, or do anything to comfort her added to that fear that maybe she was trapped in a nightmare. There wasn't a world out there where Wyatt would avoid her or avoid going near her.
Wyatt seemingly reads her mind as he goes to lean against the far wall. "Did they say you had a concussion or anything?"
Addison shakes her head, catching his eye. "My parents didn't mention one."
"Maybe they're hiding it from you."
She finds her eyes wandering as he readjusts against the wall and feels her heart stop when she sees a corner of white peak out from under his shirt's collar.
She immediately shoots up from her bed, crossing the room faster than he realizes and before he can move away she's pinning him against the wall, her fingers pulling at his collar.
Wyatt's entire body goes very still as she tugs down the front of his shirt, revealing a rectangular patch of gauze covering part of his chest. Her stomach churns, because her dad had said Wyatt had saved her from Zed which meant—
"Did Zed do this to you?" She asks in a whisper, sounding scared, upset, horrified even.
Wyatt shakes his head, even going as far as grabbing her hand so that she releases his shirt. His heart beats faster at the contact, a million thoughts racing through his mind, because he can't hurt her, he won't—
"You don't need to know, Addison." He deflects, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
"Tell me," she says, her voice growing louder.
"Addison, you don't need to know—"
She drops his hand like its fire, "Like hell I don't need to know," she says angrily, "you put yourself in harm's way for me. The least you could do is tell me how you got hurt."
He goes quiet for so long that Addison thinks he might not answer her but then he's gently pushing past her and heading towards the window.
He turns back once he's in front of the glass, a clawed hand grasping at the window lock.
"After I charged at him, I ended up on top of him. He got me in the chest and I went flying. I guess the combination of his nails and zombie strength left a mark." He nods towards her side humorlessly, "He got me the same way he got you."
Meeting her eyes, "Like I said. You didn't need to know."
Her stomach rolls and twists and bile burns as it climbs up the back of her throat. She runs for the bathroom, leaving Wyatt alone.
He stares at the spot she was standing in, blinking fast, and then as the sounds of her getting sick reach the hallway, he hears her parents jump up from the kitchen table and hurriedly make their way up the stairs.
He's gone when they help Addison back to her room after
Her heart feels cold at the emptiness of her bedroom.
"You have got to stop or else I'm not going to make it through gym class!"
"Who? Me? I'm not doing anything," but even as he says it his hand trails lower, dropping from her back down to her—
"I think I'm going to be sick," Eliza mutters grumpily from in front of them and Addison tries not to laugh but does so anyway.
She catches his hand, returning it to her waist, before turning around and shooting him a playful glare. He smiles back, attempting to act innocent as they follow behind Eliza.
The three of them push through the double doors and enter the gym, making their way over to the bleachers and taking a seat on the lowest one. Addison goes to sit and finds herself pulled onto Zed's lap instead. She rolls her eyes before pushing gently at his chest.
"Zed," she hisses, eyeing the teachers chatting with each other in the corner, "we're going to get in trouble."
He chuckles, angling her so that she's straddling him, and her cheeks flare bright red.
"So what?" He moves closer, his lips brushing across hers teasingly. "Don't you know you're worth the trouble, cheerleader?"
He kisses her, softly at first, but with more intensity as time stretches on, and vaguely, Addison can hear Eliza groaning and muttering as one kiss turns into three.
Zed pulls back as suddenly a moment later, still smiling as he leans in and gives her one last kiss, chaste this time, before sliding her off his lap and onto the bench beside him.
The teachers don't see anything as they turn around and make their way over, starting to call names, and Addison's thankful for his zombie-hearing in more ways than one.
She leans her head on his shoulder as she waits for her name to be called, their hands intertwining. Zed leaves a kiss in her hair, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"I love you," he mumbles, and Addison almost kisses him again.
"I love you too."
They listen to the teacher, barely, as she makes her way through the list of students, and Addison is just starting to nod off when Zed suddenly stiffens, his body going rigid.
She lifts her head, blinking awake, looking over at him worriedly as he pulls his arm back and holds his hands out in front of him, palm-side up.
"What's wrong?" She whispers to him, watching as he starts to breathe harder; watching, as his eyes fill with sharp panic.
He flips around his arm, his eyes flicking down to his Z-Band. She follows and an unsettling, sickening feeling enters her gut when she sees the words OFFLINE stare back at her.
Addison wakes up with a loud gasp that's halfway to a scream, sitting up and looking around her wildly.
Wyatt curses as he falls the rest of the way into the room, not expecting her outburst. She looks down at him, clutching her blanket tightly as he clambers back onto his feet.
He looks over at her after he brushes himself off, "Bad dream?" He questions and she can't bring herself to nod.
"Bad memory," she whispers back and he lets out a breath.
He looks around her room, taking in the darkness and how he's not really making himself look good right now.
"Uh," he starts, stumbling over the syllable, looking back at her with what could be a sheepish look if the moonlight wasn't playing tricks on her, "I'm also not climbing into your room in the middle of the night even if that's kind of what it looks like. It's a little after six and I decided to come by. I guess you fell asleep after dinner?"
"Where's Zed?"
Wyatt's startled by the question, "What?"
Addison clutches her blanket tighter, "Is he still in Containment?"
Wyatt glances down at his shoes and then back up, stuffing his hands in his pockets, which, the more Addison sees, the more she thinks it's a nervous habit of his, played off as cool. "He's still in Containment. They haven't released him yet."
He seems to know more than he lets on, but she lets it go, focused on her new mission. "I want to see him."
"Addison—"
"No, Wyatt," she interrupts softly, "I have to see him. I want to go."
He chews on his bottom lip, debating, worrying.
A moment later he walks up to the end of her bed, placing his hands on the metal bed frame. "I'm coming with you."
She wishes he was closer, her eyes trailing from his calloused hands, to the slightly muscular curve of his arms, each body marking looking darker than the last, and then up to his face.
He looks apprehensive, and again Addison's reminded of someone who's hiding something, but what exactly Wyatt could be hiding, is beyond a mystery.
The fourth day after her attack begins with a two hour talk with her parents about wanting to go and see Zed.
They're vehemently against the whole idea at first, which is understandable, but the longer they talk, the easier it is for Addison to convince them.
She promises up and down that she won't be alone, that she'll have a friend with her, and no not a zombie, and by four o'clock she's meeting Wyatt by the woods.
He's already waiting for her when she arrives and together they make their way to Zombie Containment, her father's badge clutched tightly in both of her hands. He said he would call ahead and let everyone know she was coming, and that he was sorry he couldn't go with her because he and his mother had a meeting to go to around dinnertime.
She recounts the story to Wyatt, who says some colorful words about her parents after hearing it.
Addison was used to it though, her parents caring one minute and not bothering the next, which she also tells him, but that just makes him scoff and shake his head.
"How about they just be your parents," he mutters angrily.
Addison agrees, but she doesn't say that out loud.
She knew his parents were never in the picture, that Willa and him were abandoned with the rest of the pack at the ripe age of newborns.
The pack helped raise them, and it was Willa and Wyatt against the world.
It was a sore subject and Addison tried to avoid talking about her parents with him over the years, afraid to say something inconsiderate by accident because at least she had parents, but he had told her otherwise time and time again.
"Parents can still be shitty, it doesn't matter if they're around or if they're not. My own experience doesn't make yours mean less." He had told her, and it had stuck with her.
They talk about her parents for most of the walk but she switches the subject not long before they get there, not wanting Wyatt to be worked up about something he couldn't control, and that she had come to terms with years ago.
Everything after goes by in a flash after they enter the building and Addison's okay until they're walking with one of the doctors, who's going over protocol this and protocol that, when something he says catches her attention.
"—and as per protocol no one has been in to check on him yet so that we can have a few days worth of readings on his Z-Band to see if we can find out what had caused the malfunction in the first place—"
The doctor leads them to the security room, where he pushes open the door and starts to usher them through.
His words already aren't sitting right with Addison, but when she glances at the monitors and sees Zed for the first time in what feels like years, anger fills her at his obvious suffering.
He's sitting on the bare cot in the corner, rubbing at his right shoulder.
He's still in the same clothes he was in from that school day, and there's dried blood all over him. His chin has been poorly scrubbed off, and his nails are jagged and uneven.
When he shifts, his bloody shirt pulls, revealing a massive open wound on his right shoulder, unattended to.
Addison turns towards the doctor, her eyes flaring. "Why hasn't he been attended to?"
The doctor cowers under her gaze, struggling for an answer. Wyatt can't help but smirk at Addison's angry side because damn she could be scary when she wanted to be.
"We've been motoring his vitals, Ma'am, and he's been perfectly stable—"
"He is in the same clothes from four days ago! You're treating him like a monster when he's—"
"Ma'am," the doctor interrupts, shaking his head sadly, though still treading carefully, "he is a monster and this is the proper protocol. I'm sorry."
At the doctor's frank words, Addison feels the anger fizzle out of her, like a match being snuffed.
When she takes a step back from the countless screens in front of her, she bumps into Wyatt, who grabs at her shoulder to steady her.
It's an automatic action, unintentional by all means, but when she looks back at him, her top lip trembling, all he wants to do is pull her into a hug, his own fears be damned.
"Addison," he whispers, keeping hold of her shoulder, fighting against his own thoughts.
He goes to say more but she's turning back to the doctor before he can, wiping a tear from her cheek and steadying her words. "I'm going in there and wrapping his injuries."
"Ma'am—"
She turns and walks out of the room, spotting an emergency kit by the door and grabbing it as she goes, leaving Wyatt to follow after her as she makes her way down the hallway, past empty rooms—prison cells—sealed by see-through glass.
"Addison."
She ignores him, continuing on, picking up her pace as they near the end of the hallway, to where Zed sits, like a monster forgotten under a bed.
Wyatt mumbles a curse under his breath before closing the distance between them, reaching out and grabbing her wrist.
"Addison!"
She whips around to face him, determination burning bright in her eyes. "What?" She snaps, making no attempts to move away from him.
"This wasn't the plan. The plan wasn't to go in there with him."
"It's fine, Wyatt, I'm fine."
"I know you aren't ready and I don't want you to get hurt." He argues, lowering his voice even though there's no one around to hear.
Addison goes quiet, thinking.
His hand is still gripping her wrist lightly, and she hasn't made any effort to move away.
"How would I get hurt if you're there with me?" She says, and those words strike a chord within him.
She's a hundred percent honest as she says them, because on the inside she really wasn't ready, he was right about that.
There was still a fear whenever she thought of Zed, and how he had torn her open like she was going to be his next meal. Maybe she would've been if Wyatt hadn't gotten there in time, if she couldn't stop him.
Seeing him in person was going to be hard, extremely hard, but . . . she had Wyatt there with her, and she wouldn't have wanted anyone else.
"I trust you," she continues, swallowing back the fear pushing at her to run the opposite way, "I trust you to protect me, and I trust you to not attack me. I trust you, Wyatt. You would never hurt me."
Wyatt stares at her, bewildered.
She nods to herself before walking past him, her wrist slipping from his hold. Wyatt's still staring after her when she finds herself in front of Zed's cell, and only rushes to catch up once he realizes it.
Zed's so numb with pain that he doesn't even see them standing there, his eyes staring unseeingly at the floor, one hand still covering his injured shoulder.
Addison swallows past the lump in her throat and taps her father's badge to the scanner on the door, the light flashing green as the door unlocks with a sharp click.
Zed, more aware than before, doesn't bother to look up, instead shifting closer to the wall when he hears the door open, and she has trouble finding the right words as her and Wyatt enter the cell and come to a stop a few paces from his cot.
Wyatt's standing close behind her, her back brushing across his chest, and she almost leans into him, almost gives in and asks him to take her home, because the things she's feeling, so suddenly, so painfully, are enough to make her want to disappear.
She pockets her dad's badge and then, first aid kit grasped tightly in both hands, she takes a step toward his bed.
"Zed?"
She sees his shoulders tense, sees the flinch as the movement causes pain to shoot through his injured shoulder.
One second passes, then another.
When he turns around, it's slow, deliberate, and as soon as he sees her, he's crying, tears slipping down cheeks, dripping from his chin.
"Addison," he whispers, his voice hoarse, "Oh my God, Addison," he whispers again, quieter this time, shock—disbelief—coloring his tone.
She offers her best try at a smile, hoping it reaches her eyes.
"Hi, Zed," she murmurs, closing the distance between them and taking a seat at the end of his cot.
Her eyes go to the mess of his shoulder, and she lifts a hand, gently tracing a finger over some of the scarring.
"I'm sorry this happened," she continues when no words leave him, his eye watching her listlessly, "but I'm here to help."
She places the first aid kit on the cot between them, popping it open and reaching for some alcohol wipes.
She rips a few open and then goes for his shoulder, "This is going to sting," she says before beginning to wipe, and he hisses when the wipe meets his wound but stays still otherwise.
It's quiet for a while, as Addison takes her time cleaning Zed's wound.
Wyatt stays perched a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest as he watches the two of them, his eyes never wandering too far away.
As Addison begins to wrap gauze around Zed's shoulder, instructing him to lift his armpit so she can make a loop and keep the gauze in place, he meets her eyes and her heart feels shattered all over again.
One arm raised gingerly over his head he says, "I'm so sorry, Addy."
The gauze goes around and around, "It wasn't your fault, Zed," she dismisses, her heart increasing in pace when he inches closer to her.
She finishes wrapping his arm and he returns it to his side as Addison returns the supplies to the first aid kit and snaps the lid closed.
"I couldn't find my way back," he admits in a whisper, breaking their eye contact so he can look down at the floor. "I heard you, I heard everything but I—"
His voice breaks and he sniffles, struggling with his words.
"I couldn't reach you. It was like you were underwater and I kept reaching and reaching but you were always out of reach. You were drowning before I even looked down."
He shakes his head, feeling disgusted with himself. "I hurt you. I'll never be able to forgive myself for that."
"Sometimes, love isn't enough," she mumbles humorlessly, recalling a quote she had heard many, many years ago from her grandmother.
"Addy I—"
It happens in slow motion.
He reaches his hand out, going to cup her cheek, and all Addison can see is black veins, a discolored face, gaping teeth—
"No!"
She jumps up, the panic within her sharp, her heart beating rapidly and when Wyatt's hand closes around her shoulder, she looks to him in panic
"I—I can't be here," she gets out, and he simply nods before guiding her to the door.
Zed watches them go, a tremble to his hands.
"What's—What's happening?" Addison asks, her tone catching Eliza's attention.
She jumps up from her seat, hurrying over, her eyes widening as she grabs his Z-Band, looking down at it with a hacker's eyes.
"Someone hacked it," she whispers in horror, and that's all it takes for Zed to gently shove Addison backward, trying to get her as far away from him as possible.
His eyes meet hers.
"You have to get all the humans out of here," he says in a rush, fighting against the monster growing inside of him.
Eliza holds his arm, ready to keep him down if he tries to lunge. Addison doesn't move, still staring at her boyfriend, him staring back.
Black begins to paint his arms, veins growing, a soft rumble emitting from the back of his throat. He twists his head, groaning as something else takes over.
Eliza grabs at his other arm as the rest of the class finally notices what's happening and starts to scramble from the bleachers in fright.
"Addison, go!" Zed yells before losing himself completely and in the next second, he's gone.
Eliza, now using all of her strength, starts talking to him, urging him to fight against it and to come back while Addison stands from the bleachers and directs her attention to the rest of the class as she walks to the middle of the gymnasium.
"Everyone, go! You all need to get out of here, now!"
Addison watches the students flee, the teachers themselves teetering between staying or leaving.
Satisfied with the amount of people getting to safety, she turns back around just in time to hear a loud roar and see Eliza go flying towards the other set of bleachers.
She doesn't have any time to react, not even to call her name, because then Zed's on her, the back of her head hitting the floor painfully as she goes down.
She screams, half from pain, half from shock, and immediately begins to struggle against her boyfriend, her hands clawing at his chest, desperately pushing him back.
She opens her eyes, which had shut from the impact, and sees a rogue zombie above her, his mouth curled into a snarl, his eyes empty.
"Zed, Zed, please," she begs, freaking out now, because he had gone full zombie before and she was able to bring him back, two different times now, but those times had never been escalated like this.
He was never attacking her, never on top of her, his hands sharp as nails as they go for her—
The Z-Alert goes off as his fingers tear into Addison's side, the siren masking the sound of her scream.
Zed's fingers come back bloody and he lifts his shaking hand to stare at them, his lips twitching as Addison writhes beneath him.
"This isn't you, Zed, please," she whispers, her side throbbing, pain shooting throughout her body.
Blood drips from his fingers onto the pastel pink of her shirt, tainting it, and she bites back a sob.
He couldn't be gone.
She could bring him back. She was enough.
Their love was enough.
. . . Wasn't it?
His face inches closer to her, and at first, she thinks he's getting closer to her face, but he's actually getting closer to her arm, and her heart seizes, a whole new type of panic filling her.
"Zed, please, please," she says, and she hears nothing but a snarl as his teeth sink into human flesh.
After is only noise, between the pain and the blood loss.
She hears the doors slamming open and a different kind of growl, in warning. She hears Zed growl back, but otherwise unthreatened. She hears someone yell and then a roar so deafening it haunts her before she fades away into the darkness.
She's calling out for him before she's even awake and fully aware of her surroundings.
He's sitting in the desk chair across the room, watching an old movie on the television, twiddling his thumbs idly, but he's at her side in an instant, his cold fingers closing gently around her bicep.
"I'm right here," he whispers as she turns on her side towards him, her eyes wet.
A full week since she had seen Zed and the same memory—that was more of a nightmare than a memory—had been playing over and over again as soon as she closed her eyes.
She had asked Wyatt to stay overnight earlier when she was eating the takeout he had brought her for dinner, her parents out of town doing who the hell knew what for the next few days.
He had offered to stay every night so she wouldn't have to be alone, if she was okay with it, instead and she had smiled and accepted.
She watches him, sleep trying to pull her back, and it's odd, seeing him without his signature wolf jacket and jeans. Instead he's in grey sweats and a purple tee, and his hair is more messy than usual. He looks tired, but he stays by her side anyway.
She thinks she might—
"Will you lay with me?"
Her voice is barely above a whisper as she asks it and his eyebrows easily disappear into his hairline.
His grip on her bicep loosens considerably, "Addison," he cautions, his own voice quiet.
"Please?"
He sighs but makes his way over to the empty side of the bed, not bothering to pull back the covers as he carefully lays down beside her, keeping a healthy distance between them.
His heart speeds up at being so close to her, yearning, but he smothers the feeling quickly.
Addison rolls onto her back as he crosses his arms behind his head and there they both lay, the only sounds their even breathing and the mumbling of the television.
Some time passes before Addison suddenly breaks the tranquil silence by moving closer to him, close enough that she can rest her head on his chest.
His heart stops as she gets comfortable, laying a hand on his stomach, her fingers pinching the coarse fabric of his shirt.
After she stops moving his heart unfreezes and beats ever faster, years-long feelings pushing and pushing. They push until they can't anymore and then the words are tumbling from his lips before he can stop them.
"Do you still love him?"
Addison doesn't answer until sleep is tugging at his eyelids, begging him to give in.
"I don't know."
Wyatt files the information away and pulls his arms out from behind his head, wrapping one around her and as the other falls to his side, his hand coming to rest on top of hers. He leaves a kiss in her hair and her eyes slip closed.
Her parents end up being gone a day too long, leaving Wyatt having to be the one to take Addison to get her stitches removed.
The doctor is a kind older man who doesn't make a face at Wyatt being in the room with them and pulls both sets of stitches out with practiced ease.
Addison only feels a slight discomfort in her side afterward but nothing else. The pain in her side is nearly gone now and she's grateful for it, wanting as little reminders as possible about the incident. The doctor asks her some questions and after receiving answers he's happy with, they're allowed to leave.
They decide that they're going to stop and get ice-cream on the way back to Addison's house and they're passing the path that leads to Zombietown when Addison tells him she needs to talk to Zed.
Wyatt, surprisingly, doesn't argue and they make their way there together, their hands brushing as they go.
Zed answers the door after the second knock, looking exhausted as he pulls it open. His exhaustion turns to shock when he sees who's at the door and Addison gives him a timid smile.
"Addison," he sounds relieved, and she really doesn't know how she's going to do this—any of this—exactly. "Do you, um, want to come in?"
She shakes her head and turns to Wyatt beside her, "Could you give us a minute?"
He nods and makes his way over to where the cauliflower cart sits, looking for a snack. Addison turns back to Zed, who is extremely careful with his movements as he runs a hand through his disheveled hair. "So what's—"
"I can't do this anymore, Zed."
His eyes go wide at her admission as she wrings her hands, shaking her head.
"I can't move on from what happened. I flinch when you move, my heart starts racing, my fingers shake uncontrollably and I know you wouldn't," her voice catches, breaking, probably like his heart is but she has to push through this. He has to understand. "I can't stop seeing—I can't repair our relationship feeling like this, Zed, and I don't think this is something that can be repaired."
Zed's completely silent as she talks, not interrupting or pleading or getting angry. She wishes he would give her some type of reaction so she knew how to feel about this because all she felt when she thought of them and their relationship was empty.
"It's over, Zed and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
He nods, though the movement is stiff.
His hands twitch at his sides and a watery laugh escapes him as he slowly reaches up and wipes at his nose haphazardly. "Can I just, can I have a hug, before you go?"
Addison can't deny him even with the anxiety accompanied with his request and he takes a step forward and wraps her up in a hug, his chin coming to rest on top of her head.
"I'm so sorry, Addy," he mumbles into her hair, over and over again. "I'm so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you." Her heart is already pounding and she doesn't want to pull away first, wants nothing more than to let him heal if this is how he needs to, but her—she—
"Zed," Wyatt states as he comes up behind her, not unkindly.
At the sound of his name, Zed releases her and Addison gives him one last look before going to stand next to Wyatt. Zed vaguely gestures towards Wyatt's chest, "I'm sorry about the—"
"It's okay," he dismisses, nodding his head towards Zed's shoulder.
Wyatt grabs Addison's hand as she calms from the panic attack that had been starting while she was with Zed, and allows him to lead her back out of Zombietown. Zed watches as they go, his heart feeling just as broken as their ex-relationship was.
A week later, Wyatt's climbing through the window when he looks up and sees her.
She's standing in front of the full-body mirror that sits on her closet door, distracted by what she sees. She has the corner of her shirt pulled up, revealing the jagged, healed skin of her left side. There's three distinct gash marks, medium-sized lines as long as pens, all three disfigured and discolored.
Wyatt slowly makes his way over to her, coming to a stop behind her. She locks eyes with him in the mirror, his chest touching her back, his hand reached out, fingers inching towards her scars.
"Can I?" He asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
Numbly, she nods, and Wyatt's fingers are warm as they press against the top scar.
When she doesn't react, he steadies his heartbeat, and begins to follow the line, all the way to the end. Then he moves onto the middle one, his touch still feather-light as he traces that scar too. It's between that scar and the next that he admits something Addison didn't realize had happened.
"I went for his shoulder," he mumbles, sounding uncertain, his fingers coming to a stop on the small patch of scarless skin. "Addison I bit him. Zed. I bit his shoulder. I'm the one that did that to him."
Nothing happens when he tells her. She doesn't suddenly feel unsafe or unsure. She doesn't feel any different about him, or with him, but he's giving her a look that tells her he's feeling the opposite, his fingers still unmoving from their spot.
"I saw you on the floor under him, blood everywhere, and all I could understand was that I had to get you out of there. I had to get to you. I went after him, all teeth, no thought, and at the last second he moved and I got his shoulder instead of his—"
His voice cuts off and immediately after he goes to pull his fingers away, but Addison stops him with a hand over his wrist.
"I feel like a monster, Addison." He says, feeling like he's laying his heart bare.
He's battled with the feeling since Zed had attacked her, bottling it up and sealing it away as much as he could since no one else was around to help her, especially not her parents and especially not Zed.
But he had told her on the first night he was afraid to go near her and she had taken a sledgehammer to the walls he had built up and knocked them down until there wasn't any more left standing.
And here he is now, pushing the words out even if he's not ready for them because this is what he's been battling against. This is what he's so afraid of. This is what he wishes he was not.
"You are not a monster."
"I feel like I'm no better than—"
She turns around, stopping him. Their faces are so close he can see the different hues of blue in her eyes and she can see a hidden away body marking behind his left ear.
"No," she murmurs, "you're better."
She closes the distance between them, kissing him softly, his eyes slipping shut.
They part a moment later, her breath fanning out across his cheeks. He opens his eyes, looking almost painfully into hers. "I love you too much for this to be a rebound," he whispers, reaching up and running his thumb across her cheekbone.
She drops his wrist so she can lift her hand and slip it around the back of his neck, her fingers meeting untamed hair. "You could never be a rebound, Wyatt," she murmurs, bringing him in close, their lips brushing. "You're so much more than that."
Their lips connect and Wyatt swears he's on top of the world as he melts into the kiss, finally letting himself feel after so long. He places his hands on her hips, leaning closer, deepening the kiss and feels her smile against his lips.
They kiss until they can't anymore, their need for air winning over their urge for intimacy. When they pull back, smiles are on both of their faces, their lips slightly swollen, but their hearts, their hearts are finally starting to mend.