Chapter 152: The Scream [17]

Silence fell over the ruined house like a suffocating blanket, broken only by the distant crackling of flames still consuming what remained of their home and the harsh, ragged breathing of the survivors.

“Is… is it dead?” Cindy whispered. She stared at the motionless corpse of the Enhanced Infected, unable to tear her eyes away from the monster that had nearly killed them all. Part of her expected it to lurch back to life at any moment, to continue its relentless assault despite the catastrophic damage they’d inflicted.

Elena approached the fallen creature with cautious steps, her lightning-charged crowbar still raised defensively despite the obvious exhaustion written across every line of her body. She was trembling—not just from fear, but from the complete depletion of her energy reserves. Sweat poured down her face in rivulets. The Dullahan virus had burned through her stamina like wildfire through dry grass, leaving her feeling hollow and dangerously weak.

With the toe of her boot, Elena nudged the infected’s massive shoulder. The charred flesh gave slightly under the pressure, but there was no response—no twitch of muscle, no sudden movement, no sign of the unnatural vitality that had kept it fighting despite wounds that would have killed a normal human ten times over.

“Yeah,” Elena said finally, relief flooding her voice like a dam breaking. “It’s dead. Finally dead.”

Christopher lowered his empty gun with trembling hands, the adrenaline that had kept him focused and sharp during the battle now crashing through his system in waves. His arms felt like lead weights, and there was a fine tremor running through his entire body that he couldn’t quite control. “Jesus Christ,” he breathed, his voice rough and strained. “I never want to do that again. Not ever.”

“Agreed,” Cindy said weakly. She looked down at herself, taking inventory of the damage she’d sustained during the fight. Her clothes were torn in multiple places, revealing cuts and bruises that decorated her arms and legs like some blood painting. Blood—both her own and the infected’s black ichor—stained her shirt and pants. Nothing appeared serious, thankfully. Already she could feel the Dullahan virus working its subtle magic, accelerating her body’s natural healing processes. The deeper cuts had stopped bleeding, and the pain was fading to a dull, manageable throb.

On the stairs above them, Alisha let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, one hand pressed against her chest as if to keep her racing heart from bursting free. Even Liu Mei’s characteristically stern and haughty expression had softened marginally, a barely perceptible relaxation of the rigid mask she usually wore.

But their moment of relief was destined to be short-lived.

“Let’s not let our guard down,” Elena said sharply, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten as survival instincts kicked back into high gear. She turned toward the back entrance of the house. “We’ve got company.”

Through the haze and flickering firelight, shapes began to emerge—shuffling, stumbling figures with that distinctive lurching gait that could only belong to the infected. These weren’t Enhanced like the monster they’d just killed; these were ordinary infected, drawn by the sounds of combat and the scent of living flesh. But what they lacked in individual power, they made up for in numbers. Elena counted at least a dozen, possibly more lurking in the shadows beyond her vision.

She raised her crowbar instinctively, preparing to meet the new threat head-on, but the moment she tried to channel her electrical power, something went terribly wrong.

Pain exploded in her chest like someone had driven a spike directly through her sternum. It felt as though an invisible hand had wrapped around her heart and was slowly crushing it. The crowbar slipped from her nerveless fingers, clattering against the burned floorboards as she doubled over.

“Harg…” The sound that escaped her throat was barely human, a strangled groan of agony that cut through the ambient noise like a knife.

“Elena? You okay?” Cindy was at her side in an instant, hands hovering uncertainly, wanting to help but unsure what to do.

Alisha descended the stairs with reckless speed, taking the steps two at a time despite the risk of falling through weakened boards. “Elena!”

“What’s wrong?” Christopher asked, dividing his attention between Elena’s crumpled form and the approaching infected.

“It must be because she overused her Dullahan energy,” Cindy said quickly, understanding dawning in her eyes. She’d heard Ryan talk about this phenomenon before—the dangerous consequences of pushing enhanced abilities beyond their limits. The Dullahan virus granted incredible powers, but those powers came with a price. Overextension could cause temporary paralysis, excruciating pain, or in extreme cases, permanent damage to the host’s system.

Elena had definitely overused her abilities. The massive electrical discharge she’d channeled through her crowbar to stun the Enhanced Infected had required an enormous expenditure of energy—far more than her body could safely sustain. Now she was paying the price, her system rebelling against the abuse it had endured.

“Well, give me that and rest a bit,” Christopher said, making an executive decision. He handed his empty gun to Cindy—useless without ammunition but better than nothing—and bent down to retrieve Elena’s fallen crowbar from the floor. The metal was still warm to the touch, residual electricity making his fingers tingle uncomfortably. “I’ll handle these bastards. You take care of her.”

“I’ll help you,” Cindy insisted, falling into position beside him despite the exhaustion weighing down her own limbs. She felt tired—bone-deep weary in a way that went beyond mere physical fatigue—but nothing compared to Elena’s current state. And there was no way in hell she was going to let Christopher fight alone while she stood by watching.

“Here, sit down,” Alisha said gently, guiding her trembling sister to one of the staircase steps that looked stable enough to support her weight. From somewhere in her jacket pocket, she produced a slightly dented water bottle—warm and tasting faintly of plastic, but clean. “Drink this. Slowly.”

Elena took the bottle with shaking hands and immediately began gulping down water like a woman dying of thirst. The liquid was exceptionally refreshing despite its warmth, soothing her parched throat and helping to ease some of the crushing pressure in her chest. The Dullahan virus demanded hydration when recovering from overexertion, and her body was desperately grateful for every drop.

When she’d drained nearly half the bottle, Elena finally stopped, gasping for air. She handed it back to Alisha with a weak smile that was more grimace than anything else. “I’m sorry to have worried you…” Her eyes drifted past her sister to where Christopher and Cindy were engaging the approaching infected, their weapons rising and falling in rhythmic violence.

Liu Mei stood just behind them, maintaining a careful distance but ready to intervene if necessary. Her posture was impeccable despite the chaos—back straight, hammer held with casual confidence, one eyebrow raised in that perpetually arrogant expression that somehow made her look like a princess observing her soldiers in battle rather than a survivor fighting for her life. The image was so absurdly out of place that Elena found herself smiling despite everything.

Christopher and Cindy were handling the infected well enough, working together with a coordination that spoke of growing trust and mutual respect. Christopher’s crowbar swings were efficient and brutal, targeting heads and necks with precision. Cindy moved with enhanced speed, her steel pipe connecting with skulls in sharp, controlled strikes. They weren’t as powerful as Elena’s electrical attacks or Rachel’s protective barriers, but they were effective.

More importantly, they were smiling—actually smiling as they fought, exchanging brief comments and encouragement between strikes. Elena watched them with a sense of profound relief and happiness that momentarily overshadowed her own pain. After everything that had happened between them—the tension, the hurt feelings, the complicated history—Christopher and Cindy had somehow managed to mend their relationship. They couldn’t be lovers, that ship had sailed and sunk spectacularly, but they’d found something perhaps equally valuable: genuine friendship.

“You understand what kind of danger we’re facing now?” Alisha’s voice cut through Elena’s observations, stern and serious. Her blue eyes bored into her sister’s with an intensity that made Elena want to look away.

Elena did look away, guilt and understanding warring in her expression. Her gaze dropped to her hands, which were still trembling slightly. “Alya… you hid the phone from me until now because you didn’t want us to return to father’s world,” she said quietly. “And now that we know he’s alive and well—and it’s likely that he was aware of what was coming, wasn’t he?”

The silence that followed was deafening.

Alisha didn’t reply immediately, but Elena could read the answer in her sister’s tense shoulders, in the way her jaw clenched, in the careful neutrality of her expression that was itself an admission of guilt.

In fact, Alisha harbored enormous doubts about their father’s survival—not whether he’d survived, because a man with his resources and connections would have had every possible advantage, but about what he’d known beforehand. When she’d finally managed to establish contact with him through that satellite phone, there had been something deeply unsettling about the conversation. The casualness in his voice, the cold detachment with which he’d discussed the apocalypse, the complete lack of surprise or confusion about the state of the world—it had all felt wrong. Calculated. Rehearsed.

It was exactly as Liu Mei had suggested back at Lexington Charter. The greatest VIPs of the world—the ultra-wealthy, the politically connected, the true power brokers who operated behind the scenes—had been made aware of the coming catastrophe through some means. They’d had time to prepare, to secure resources, to establish safe havens while the rest of humanity remained blissfully ignorant until it was too late.

And among those privileged few who’d been warned, it seemed their father had been there. Waiting. Watching. Safe in whatever fortress he’d constructed while the world burned around him.

The realization left a bitter taste in Elena’s mouth that had nothing to do with smoke or ash.

Alisha looked at her sister for a long moment. Then, finally, she sighed.

“Yes, Father may have been aware of it,” Alisha admitted quietly. “But we can do nothing about it now. What’s done is done.”

She paused, choosing her next words carefully. “Back in New York, when everything started—when the first infected began appearing in the streets and panic swept through the city like wildfire—Father contacted me. He asked me to stay at Lexington Charter, told me he would come to pick us up personally. That we just needed to wait, to stay safe, and he would handle everything.”

Elena’s eyes widened slightly. This was new information, a piece of the puzzle she hadn’t known existed. “He did? But you never—”

“I chose to leave,” Alisha interrupted, her voice taking on a sharper edge—not anger directed at Elena, but at herself, at the choices that had led them to this moment. “I naively thought we could survive on our own, that we didn’t need Father’s help or his resources. I thought…” She laughed bitterly, the sound devoid of any real humor. “I thought we could make it through this together, just the two of us, without owing him anything.”

“But right now, things are different,” Alisha continued, her tone shifting from regretful to deadly serious. She leaned forward slightly, making sure Elena was paying full attention to every word. “This isn’t just about surviving infected anymore. We’re dealing with an Alien Race—intelligent, organized, and actively hunting us. Dangerous alien technologies capable of wiping out entire communities with a single scream. And most importantly, the presence of Symbiosis Hosts who are specifically targeted by them.”

Her gaze bore into Elena with laser focus, making sure her sister understood the full implications. “After you had sex with Ryan, you became a Host of the Dullahan Symbiosis. You’re not the Original Host like him, but that doesn’t matter—not to the aliens hunting you. As far as they’re concerned, you’re just as valuable a target. They’ll come for you the same way they come for Ryan, and they won’t stop until you’re dead or captured.”

Elena should know about it but Alisha needed Elena to really understand her situation.

“This is all a bit overwhelming, Lena,” Alisha said after another heavy sigh.

“Alya…” Elena raised her gaze to meet her sister’s eyes, seeing the fear and concern written there plainly despite Alisha’s attempts to maintain her composed exterior.

Alisha offered a bitter, twisted smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I have no intentions of abandoning you—you must know that. You’re my sister, and I would die before I left you alone but I also can’t protect you. Not really. Not from this.”

The admission of powerlessness clearly pained her. Alisha had always been the strong one, the protective older sister who solved problems and kept Elena safe from harm. But this situation was beyond her capabilities, and acknowledging that fact felt like admitting failure.

She hadn’t received any Dullahan enhancements herself—no superhuman strength, no electrical powers, no healing factor. She was just a normal human trying to survive in a world that had become hostile to normal humans. In a fight against Enhanced Infected or alien threats, she would be nothing but a burden, a liability that Elena would have to protect rather than the other way around.

And at the same time, Alisha genuinely couldn’t understand why Elena would choose this dangerous, uncertain existence when she could live in relative safety at their father’s compound. He had resources—money, weapons, fortified locations, armed guards, stockpiles of food and medicine. They wouldn’t need to do anything to survive. They could just… exist. Safe. Protected. Comfortable while the world burned around them.

Elena hesitated, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. She wanted to explain, to make Alisha understand, but the words felt inadequate for the complexity of her feelings.

“Are you certain you’re in love with Ryan?” Alisha asked suddenly. Her tone wasn’t accusatory or judgmental—just genuinely curious, seeking truth.

“Eh?” Elena’s face flushed immediately, caught completely off-guard by the directness of the question.

“You’ve had sex with him a few times now—solely to stabilize the Dullahan Virus inside you, yes, but it’s still sex. Physical intimacy in its most basic form.” Alisha said. “Maybe that closeness and proximity—that physical vulnerability you’ve never experienced with anyone before—is being misinterpreted by your brain. Maybe what you think is love is actually just your mind confusing intimacy with emotional connection. Don’t you think? Like the suspension bridge effect?”

The example was somewhat clumsy—the suspension bridge effect referred to misattributing physiological arousal from fear or excitement to romantic attraction—but Alisha’s meaning was clear enough. Was Elena’s supposed love for Ryan real, or was it a psychological trick born from the unique circumstances of their relationship?

Was it the act of sex itself that made her believe she loved Ryan? Or was it Ryan himself—his character, his actions, his presence—that she genuinely loved?

“N…No!” Elena shot to her feet immediately, her voice rising in volume and intensity as surprise and indignation flooded through her. The sudden movement made Alisha lean back slightly, eyes widening at the vehemence of her sister’s reaction.

Elena stood there, trembling not from fear or exhaustion but from the sheer force of her conviction. She looked at Alisha with deadly seriousness, placing one hand over her chest where her heart hammered against her ribs like it was trying to break free.

“I… I really love Ryan with all my heart,” she said. Her voice shook slightly, not from uncertainty but from the overwhelming emotion she was barely containing. “I… I really can’t imagine being away from him. When he’s gone, even for a few hours, I feel like something essential is missing. When he comes back, it’s like I can finally breathe properly again. That’s not the suspension bridge effect or confusion or biology—that’s love, Alya. R…Real love.”

The passionate declaration hung in the air, echoing slightly in the ruins of the house.

A heavy silence fell immediately after Elena’s words, broken only by the ambient sounds of destruction around them—crackling flames, settling debris, distant groans of infected in the darkness beyond their walls.

Then Elena suddenly became aware that the background noise of combat had stopped. The sounds of Christopher’s crowbar striking flesh, Cindy’s grunts of effort, even Liu Mei’s occasional sarcastic commentary—all of it had ceased.

She turned slowly, dread pooling in her stomach as she realized what that silence meant.

Cindy, Christopher, and Liu Mei were all staring at her with various expressions of surprise, awkwardness, and poorly concealed amusement. The infected they’d been fighting lay motionless at their feet, dealt with while Elena had been making her heartfelt confession. And her voice—raised in passionate declaration—had been quite loud indeed. Loud enough to carry clearly across the ruined house to where everyone else stood.

Elena’s face immediately flushed a deep, mortified crimson that spread from her cheeks down her neck and probably continued beneath her collar. She looked away quickly, wishing desperately that the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

Christopher looked like he was desperately trying not to laugh, his lips pressed together in a thin line that kept twitching upward at the corners. Cindy’s expression was softer, more understanding—a small, knowing smile that suggested she completely empathized with Elena’s situation. Liu Mei simply raised one elegant eyebrow.

At that precise moment—as if the universe had decided Elena hadn’t been embarrassed enough yet—the sound of footsteps echoed through the entrance of the house. Slow footsteps.

Elena’s expression immediately brightened, embarrassment momentarily forgotten as hope surged through her chest. She turned toward the entrance with a genuine smile lighting up her face, thinking—praying—that it was Ryan returning.

It would be a perfect timing.

But the smile froze on her face, then slowly died as the figure stepped into the flickering firelight where she could see them clearly.

It wasn’t Ryan.

Jason stood in the doorway, his silhouette framed by the smoky darkness behind him and the orange glow of flames dancing across the ruins. And there was something terribly, viscerally wrong about his expression.

His lips twisted upward in a smile that held absolutely no warmth or friendship—only something cold and disturbingly wrong.

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