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didn’t know what they’d think, then.
    Best just to do it all quick right here. Then realized too late that Jamie was actually quite a bit slimmer than her around the chest and hips.
    She cursed herself once the t-shirt and sweatpants were on. They were snugger than fuck, and now somehow she’d done the opposite of what the wool had probably been all about. She’d drawn a big circle around the word woman over her head, without really intending to.
    Plus her boobs looked much bigger now because the rest of her had shrunk. Oh wasn’t that a thing to realize, in a bedroom filled with men! She’d turned into Booberella somewhere in between cutting someone’s face off and running seventeen miles to escape that one zombie that just. Wouldn’t. Quit.
    If the shopping channel had still been in existence she was betting they’d have paid good money for that particular exercise and diet regime. Get a semi-flat stomach and giant norks with these three easy apocalyptic steps!
    “You ready?”
    His eyes didn’t even flick to the boobs when he came out of the bathroom. Lord, she didn’t know what she was thinking. She’d probably noticed his boobs more than he’d noticed hers. His t-shirt was skintight and she could see just about everything—even the outline of something vague and shadowy between his legs.
    And it was on that disturbing thought that she realized something, for the first time. It stuck out with a splendid clarity above all the silly thoughts about them raping her or wanting her or any of that other stuff.
    They didn’t find her sexually attractive. They were nice guys who’d never do that sort of thing, but still the fact remained that even if they hadn’t been nice they probably wouldn’t have done anything, anyway.
    Because they didn’t want her. She was a Eunuch to them. A sexual cul-de-sac. Things didn’t mysteriously change because of the apocalypse. If you were nothing before, you remained so.
    And she was definitely nothing to them.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
    The woods really weren’t as scary as they had at first seemed, from the inside. For a start, the trees were very widely spaced. There wasn’t much opportunity for things to hide or lurk between them. And even better—the ground underfoot wasn’t overly littered with mulch or branches.
    They were sturdy evergreen things, after all. They didn’t leave stuff all over the place for her to run on and make some awful, zombie-alerting racket. She could safely pound away and not have to worry about tripping over loads of things.
    Plus, Blake was there. He was right there, by her side. She could hear him breathing even when she didn’t look—slow and steady, in and out. He breathed the way she did, though she figured he’d probably properly learned the technique. Rather than just picking it up due to absolute necessity.
    However, she had to say it was kind of gratifying to see his obviously fit-all-his-life moves replicated by her own body, exactly. The way he pumped his arms. The way he kept focused on the terrain ahead. There was really nothing worse, after all, than constantly checking behind yourself for…anything that might be after you.
    She’d seen firsthand what checking behind yourself in a blind panic could do. It made you slow even though you might not have thought so. It made you unaware of the obstacles ahead, then suddenly, suddenly…
    She drew herself back together and focused on her own breathing. That good burn that was starting, low down in the muscles of her lower legs. Blake probably knew the names of those muscles, but she didn’t. She only knew they burned and burned, and after a while her lungs would start burning—especially in the freezing cold air.
    Though she’d learned the hard way that it was better to run in cold conditions than hot. It was one of the reasons they’d made their way North—well, that and the stench. Heat made everything smell bad faster.
    The cold kept