I was finally able to walk around and eat without losing my strength within a few minutes after about a week of lying in a hospital bed. Danny left the room after the first few days because he had to take care of Andreas and his other patients and couldn’t stay much longer.

As soon as he left, I was trying to make a fool of myself unintentionally by getting out of the bed to walk or trying to chew up solid foods I stole from the vending machines.

Long story short, I had fallen down about six times and choked on chips that I was trying to prematurely swallow at least three times.

Now that I could walk better and had most of my strength back, I went to confront the ringleader of the zombies. I needed her blood to test to see if it was Jacob’s strand, but I had a feeling I would leave unsuccessful.

I entered the cell and relocked it behind me, putting my key card in my pocket to keep it away from her. She was throwing a ball against the brick wall and catching it as it went back in her direction.

“What’s your name?” I demanded, getting closer to her. She didn’t acknowledge me.

“Ivy,” she replied, tossing the ball again.

“Why are you here?”

“You have something I want.”

“What? Money or something?”

“Andreas Bello.” I was taken aback as she uttered the name.

“Andreas is sick; she can’t leave.”

“Then, fix her and let us leave when she’s fixed.”

“We can’t fix her yet. We don’t have all the information we need to fix her.”

“Then, I’m going to terrorize all of you until I get her back.”

“Can’t do much from a jail cell.” I caught her ball and examined it. It was just an average little red bouncy ball. I bounced it back at her.

“You’re undead, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand how strong you are? You could kill all these idiots in a heartbeat.”

“I don’t want to kill anyone. I prefer to help in fixing the world opposed to destroying it.”

“I don’t care about either; I just want my friend back so we can go back to living our lives.” She glared up at me then and noticed my hand was in my pocket. I had a small set of blood-drawing items to get a blood sample from her if she was willing to give me one. “What do you want? Why are you in here with me?”

“My friend is sick, too. He might die if I can’t figure out how to fix him. I want to test your strand to see if it matches his.”

“You aren’t sticking any needles in me, kid. Might as well give up now.”

“We’re like the same age.” I caught her ball again and bounced it off the wall.

“Can you leave? I want to go to bed, Mr. Sparky.”

“My name is Lin.”

She shrugged and rolled her dead eyes. It was rare to meet me. Now, there was another one, sitting in a jail cell.

I was a bit frustrated with her and left before my mouth got me in trouble.

Danny asked if I got anything out of her the next day, which I quickly denied. He confirmed that I could try again soon, but I knew it wasn’t going to work no matter how hard I tried.