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had last month. Joe’s lead guitar was
sloppy and enthusiastic, reminiscent of his idols, The Ramones, and was about
all he could pull off with the lost dexterity that came with some ZV infection.
Sam’s vocals were a growling, indecipherable mess that had their own kind of
charm. Without a drummer, the tempo wandered.
    The last chord hung in the air. The audience, all
eight of them, clapped politely—even Mr. Clark, who had shouldered the flamethrower
and lifted his visor, exposing a rugged, handsome face under a graying goatee.
Lydia grabbed Ani’s hand and squeezed hard.
    Ani patted her arm. “You’re up.”
    Lydia stood, ran her hands down her spring dress,
and picked up the paper from the floor. She stumbled on her way to the
microphone, cleared her throat, and opened her mouth. “Um....” With wide eyes
and trembling hands, she adjusted the mike. She exhaled, shook out her nerves,
and tried again.
    Her confident voice erupted in a staccato sestina,
a poem that recycled words according to a predetermined pattern. Ani smirked,
surprised. I didn’t know you had it in you. The meaning was hard to follow,
something about love and loss and deliberate callousness, but the rhythm had a
harsh beauty to it. Ani had encouraged her to try poetry because she was a
talentless mess when it came to music.
    Lydia finished with a bow, and Ani stood,
clapping. Everyone joined her in the standing ovation, but behind her she heard
Kyle mutter to Teah, “What the hell was that?” She couldn’t hear Teah’s
response over the applause.
    As they changed places, Ani gave Lydia a hug.
    Lydia squeezed hard, and whispered in her ear, “Thanks.”
    “It was all you,” Ani said, letting go.
    For this month’s recital, Ani had stolen melodies
from Vi Hart, increased the tempo, and woven a whimsical ditty allegretto
around them. The result was a neoclassical pop mishmash that Ani wasn’t quite
sure she liked. The newest generation of regeneratives were amazing, but as her
hands moved over the keys they were still slowed by the dullness that
threatened to overtake her dead body.
    Dullness. That’s what Devon called it.
Devon, who was the most athletic of them before their deaths, who hated Ani
with all her heart while she was alive, jealous of the attentions given by her
boyfriend.
    Mike. Poor, stupid, mentally challenged Mike. I
made him a retard. An honest-to-goodness retard. Their kiss at prom had
overwhelmed her, and she’d lost control. She still remembered the hot blood
gushing down her throat, the sickening crunch as she’d punched through his
skull, the pathetic mewling wail that—applause startled her.
    She stood, took a curt pianist’s bow, and returned
to her seat between Lydia and Devon.
    Devon. Devon had more reason to hate
Ani now than ever before. Ani had stolen her boyfriend, eaten half his brain,
killed her, killed some of her friends, and condemned the undead survivors to a
purgatory of medical experiments and public humiliation.
    “That was cool,” Devon said. “Not really my thing,
but still....”
    “Thanks,” Ani said. It’s cool that we’re cool
now, but if she ever found out....

 
     
    Chapter
    4
     
     
     “No,”
Sam said, banging her hand on the desk. “It’s easy. Just use the double-angle
formula and solve for theta.” Her raised voice was mushy through the bite
guard.
    Devon snorted.
    The sea of indecipherable gibberish on the page
taunted Ani. She’d always been pretty good at math, but precalc was a
game-changer. Ani wasn’t used to feeling dumb.
    “You can always ask Mr. Foster,” Devon said,
grinning. The leather strap covering her teeth was moist with saliva. Saliva.
Mom’s right. The new regeneratives are working.
    Ani glared at her. “How’s that calculus coming,
Devon?”
    Devon’s blue crayon snapped in half.
    Sam replied for her. “Oh, fantastic. We have a
teacher who can barely do algebra, a book written by a guy whose first language
is math—”
    “—and we can’t