Chapter 204: Emily?

“E… Emily?”

I hadn’t meant to say it—the word simply tumbled out, pulled from somewhere deep in my chest where hope and fear had tangled themselves into an impossible knot.

“Y…You know that thing?” Maribel asked me.

I understood immediately how this must look through her eyes. The blur of inhuman speed, the uncanny fluidity of movement that seemed to defy the laws of physics—to her, this could only be another variant of the Hybrid Infected, something monstrous and deadly. She had no context for what I was seeing.

“Yeah…”

My feet moved of their own accord, carrying me forward with careful, measured steps.

It was definitely Emily. There could be no doubt.

My mind erupted with questions—a torrential flood of them that crashed against each other in chaotic waves. They came too fast to catch, too numerous to sort through, each one clamoring for attention.

The memory of that day came back to me.

Leaving her in the gymnasium of our high school— the way her eyes had looked at me in those final moments. The crushing weight of regret that followed when I discovered I couldn’t stabilize her, when I realized the magnitude of what I’d done by walking away. The knowledge had eaten at me, gnawing through my thoughts in the quiet hours.

I had convinced myself of the worst possible outcome. That she had succumbed to madness, that the transformation had consumed her completely, that she had died alone and afraid because I hadn’t been strong enough or smart enough to save her. The image had haunted me for months.

Nearly three months had passed since that day, and yet here she stood. Alive.

A wave of relief crashed over me. It flooded through every cell of my body, washing away the accumulated guilt and grief I’d been carrying.

But the relief was complicated, tainted by something else I couldn’t quite name. She looked different—fundamentally altered in ways that went beyond the physical changes I’d expected. Something seemed profoundly off.

“Emily, it’s you, right?”

I continued walking, closing the distance between us. She remained motionless, her gaze locked on me. Those eyes—they were hers and yet somehow not hers at all.

The moment stretched between us. Then, without warning, she turned on her heel and bolted.

“Emily!!”

My body reacted before my mind could catch up. I launched myself forward, legs pumping as I tore after her retreating form. Behind me, I heard Maribel’s startled voice.

“Hey! Wait!” Her footsteps joined the chase.

My thoughts raced faster than my feet. I didn’t understand what was happening—couldn’t make sense of her reaction or the fear I’d glimpsed in her eyes before she ran. But none of that mattered. This was Emily. After months of guilt and grief and wondering if she was even alive, I had found her again. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let her slip away a second time.

The logic of my original choice still held weight when I examined it rationally. Back then, I hadn’t known about stabilization. Leaving had been the only option that made sense. But now? Now I had knowledge, experience, and the crushing awareness of what could become. There was no logical argument that could justify leaving her again, at least until I made sure she was fine.

“Emily!” I shouted again.

She was damn fast—faster than should have been possible even accounting for the changes I’d witnessed in others.

Of course she had awakened Dullahan. She had been the first to undergo the transformation after all, the prototype that came before Sydney and the others who followed. But watching her move now, there was something different about her. It set her apart from Sydney and the others I’d stabilized in ways I couldn’t understand.

Was this because I’d never stabilized her at all? The question nagged at me as I pushed my legs harder.

The fact that she had survived this long without stabilization was already borderline miraculous. The statistics alone suggested she should have succumbed to madness or worse within weeks. A stray thought crossed my mind—perhaps because we’d had sex twice in succession that day, maybe the second encounter had somehow counted as a form of stabilization? But that seemed like desperate rationalization, grasping at straws to explain the inexplicable. I simply didn’t know enough to say for certain.

Regardless of the mechanism, the facts remained unchanged…

I glanced back over my shoulder at Maribel. She was keeping pace remarkably well despite my enhanced speed.

Without hesitation, I made my choice. I released the restraints I’d been placing on my enhanced abilities and pushed my speed to its absolute limit. If I held back now, I would never catch Emily.

“What?”

Maribel’s voice rang out behind me in shock, but I had no time to explain or reassure. I surged forward, my legs finding a rhythm that blurred the world into streaks of color and motion.

The gap between Emily and me began to close, though she still moved with breathtaking speed that would have left any normal human choking on her dust. She suddenly veered right, her body angling sharply around a corner that led toward a cluster of abandoned houses. For approximately five seconds, I lost visual contact as the building blocked my line of sight. When I rounded the corner myself, momentum nearly carrying me too wide, she had vanished completely from view.

But I could still sense her. Her scent hung in the air—that distinctive combination of human and something else, something Dullahan, that was even more pronounced now. The trail was clear as a painted line if I just knew how to read it.

“Emily!!” I shouted into the maze of houses, my voice echoing off broken windows and crumbling facades.

Why was she running from me?

Didn’t she recognize who I was? Had the months changed me so drastically that I’d become unrecognizable? I knew my body had transformed significantly—the enhanced musculature, the changes in my features. But surely not so much that she wouldn’t know me.

I followed her traces with single-minded focus, weaving between houses. The scent trail led me through narrow gaps and over obstacles, each turn bringing me closer until I found myself standing before a specific house that looked no different from its neighbors—same peeling paint, same boarded windows, same air of abandonment.

I stopped at the threshold, my senses screaming that she was inside.

She had stopped moving. I could feel her presenceL

I stepped through the doorway.

“Emily, are you in here?” I called out, keeping my voice gentle and non-threatening.

Silence answered me.

“Emily,” I tried again, my voice softer now as I approached the staircase.

Each step up the wooden stairs produced a creak that rang out like a gunshot in the stillness as the wood groaned under my weight.

When I reached the upper floor, I paused at the top of the stairs.

Then I heard it—the faint creak of floorboards bearing weight.

My head snapped to the side just as Emily’s figure emerged from the shadows, launching toward me at full speed. Time seemed to slow, each millisecond stretching into eternity as I processed the trajectory of her attack.

I reached out instinctively, my hand extending toward her in a gesture that was half defense and half plea. But I was a fraction of a second too slow. Her body collided with mine like a freight train, the impact driving all the air from my lungs. We crashed through the wall together, the old plaster and wood exploding outward in a shower of debris. For a moment I was airborne, suspended in a cloud of dust and fragments, before gravity reasserted itself and I plummeted back down to the living room below.

The landing drove another groan from my chest as pain radiated through my back and shoulders. I blinked away the stars dancing across my vision and looked up, searching for Emily through the settling dust.

She was already airborne, having followed me through the hole in the ceiling. Her body arced through the air in a leap, arms outstretched and eyes blazing with an emotion I couldn’t quite read.

“Wait! Emily!” The words burst from me in a desperate shout as I rolled to the side.

I barely avoided her descending form, feeling the rush of displaced air as she landed where my chest had been a heartbeat earlier. Splinters of wood and chunks of plaster scattered from the impact point.

She snapped her gaze toward me then?

Instinct took over. I thrust my hand forward to freeze the time.. The power surged through me, that distinctive sensation of reality bending to my will—except this time, something was wrong.

Nothing happened.

Emily continued moving, her body flowing through space as if my ability had never activated at all. Time hadn’t frozen. The world hadn’t stopped. She was completely, utterly unaffected.

“What?” The word fell from my lips, shock rendering me momentarily paralyzed.

How was this possible? Time Freeze had never failed before, had never encountered resistance like this.

Damn it.

I couldn’t afford to stand there analyzing the impossible. I stepped back hard, feeling something fundamental shift inside me. My eyes turned to a vivid dark green. The world around me suddenly crystallized into perfect clarity, every detail rendered in sharp focus. My senses exploded outward, reaching what felt like another realm of perception entirely. I could track individual dust motes, could hear the rush of blood through Emily’s veins.

Her hand came at me in what would have seemed like a blur to anyone else, but to me now it moved through syrup. I swayed aside, letting her strike pass harmlessly by my face, then immediately caught her extended arm. Using her own momentum against her, I pulled her down and forward, guiding her body to the ground with controlled force. Before she could recover, I dropped down, my knees pinning her torso as I clasped both her wrists and pressed them firmly against the floor, immobilizing her completely.

“Look at me, Emily!” I shouted. “It’s me! It’s Ryan!”

But recognition didn’t dawn in her eyes. Instead, she thrashed violently beneath me, her body writhing with frantic energy as she fought against my restraints. Her strength was remarkable—I had to lean my full enhanced weight into holding her down, and even then I could feel her testing the limits of my grip.

Then I felt something unusual beneath my fingers where they clasped her wrists. Something that didn’t belong.

“What the…?”

Maintaining my hold with one hand, I used the other to push up the sleeve on her right arm. What I saw made me flinch.

Metal bracelets encircled both her wrists, clamped tight against her skin with no visible seam or lock. They looked industrial, utilitarian, designed for restraint rather than aesthetics. The metal had been pressed so firmly against her flesh that I could see the angry red welts and bruises beneath them, the skin raw and irritated from what must have been weeks or months of constant contact. These weren’t decorative—they were shackles.

“Found her!!”

The shout from outside shattered the moment. My head whipped toward the entrance where a figure stood silhouetted in the doorway, weapon raised and pointed directly at us.

“Oh! Finally! Damn it! I thought we lost her!” Another voice joined the first, this one horribly familiar.

The second figure stepped into the light, and recognition hit me.

Liam.

That same smug face from the gymnasium, now twisted with satisfaction.

“Oh, who do we have here? Trying to assault a woman in broad daylight, aren’t you?” Liam’s voice dripped with mockery.

“Emily!!”

A third voice cut through, panicked and furious. Tommy burst past Liam, his eyes immediately finding the scene—me pinning Emily to the ground, her struggling beneath me. I watched his expression transform in real-time, confusion giving way to rage as his face flushed crimson. His hand moved immediately, drawing the handgun from his hip and leveling it at my head with shaking hands.

He pulled the trigger without hesitation.

I had a split second—less than that, barely a fraction of thought—to react. I rolled hard to the side, releasing Emily because I had no other choice. The bullet that would have punched through my skull instead whistled past my ear, so close I felt the heat of its passage.

“Ughh!” The groan was ripped from my throat as a second shot caught me in the arm, the impact spinning me partially around.

Pain exploded through the limb, but I couldn’t afford to acknowledge it. I pushed off hard, legs driving me forward as bullets began to rain down around me like deadly hail. The floor exploded into splinters where I’d been standing a heartbeat before. I zigzagged toward the stairs, making myself as difficult a target as possible while my enhanced reflexes screamed warnings about each incoming shot.

Fuck this! What were they all doing here?

The question burned through my mind as I took the stairs three at a time, each bound sending jolts of agony through my wounded arm. My enhanced hearing picked up every sound from below—Emily being hauled to her feet, her continued thrashing, Tommy’s angry shouting, Liam’s laughter.

Against my better judgment, I risked a glance back. Emily was on the ground, surrounded by figures I now recognized as Tommy’s group. She fought like a wild animal. Tommy and several others had to work together to restrain her, their hands gripping her arms and shoulders as they struggled to keep her from breaking free. The metal bracelets on her wrists caught the light and I could swear I had seen them glowing for a moment.

The frustration of my useless Time Freeze attempt gnawed at me. If only I hadn’t wasted it on Emily, I could have frozen everyone else, could have extracted her from this situation. But the ability was spent, and it would take ten minutes before I could activate it again—ten minutes I absolutely did not have.

“Kill him, guys!” Liam’s voice rang out.

“Liam! There’s a chick coming this way!” One of his men called out then.

“Chick?” Liam asked.

Maribel. It had to be Maribel. She’d been following us, would have heard the gunshots and come running.

“Yeah, she’s pretty hot—what do we do? Bring her to Callighan?”

What?

Callighan?

You’ve gotta be kidding me…

“Yeah, bring her over,” Liam smirked.

I gritted my teeth hard and then immediately pivoted and rushed through the corridor above. The window at the end beckoned—my only escape route, my only chance to reach Maribel before they did.

I didn’t slow down. I launched myself at full speed toward the glass, my enhanced body coiled and ready for impact.

The window exploded outward as I crashed through it, shards of glass erupting in a glittering shower around me. For a brief moment I was airborne, suspended above the chaos, before gravity reasserted itself and I hit the ground in a controlled roll that absorbed most of the impact.

Behind me, I heard the commotion as the men inside the house scrambled to react. Their weapons swung toward the window, multiple voices shouting in confusion and alarm. Muzzle flashes lit up the dimming afternoon as they opened fire, bullets chewing through the air where I’d been moments before.

But I was faster—much faster. My enhanced speed carried me across the ground in a blur, eating up the distance between me and Maribel. She stood frozen in the middle of the street, her expression caught between confusion and alarm as she tried to process the explosion of violence that had erupted.

“Ryan, what are you—” She started to ask, reaching toward me in concern or question.

There was no time for explanations, no time for anything but action. I closed the final distance in a heartbeat, my arm wrapping around her waist in a grip that was probably too tight but couldn’t be helped. She gasped in surprise as I kicked off the ground with all my enhanced strength, my legs driving us both upward and forward in a powerful leap.

“Ughh!” The grunt was torn from my throat as another bullet found its mark, this one punching into my side with white-hot agony.

The pain tried to buckle my legs, tried to send us both crashing to the ground, but I held on, pushed through it and ran off.

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