Chapter 98: Don’t leave me

I stepped back as she edged closer, my hands brushing over supplies before they clattered to the floor. When I look beside me, Mark was already gone.

Where the hell was he going…?

“Adrian, honey…please…I need it…”

I looked to her. She was getting closer, her limbs shaking, an almost painful look on her face. Her eyes were red, veins spiderwebbing through the whites, molten orange painfully surrounding it.

“Everything’s gonna be okay, alright? You don’t need that…I swear you don’t.”

She wasn’t listening.

I hesitantly moved to the side, my back brushing against the table as more things fell to the floor.

She frowned at that, her face contorting into something I couldn’t recognize.

“Where are you going…?”

“Huh—? I’m going to look for something to help you. Something that isn’t amber. I wanna help—..”

“BULLSHIT!!” She screamed.

I frowned, confused.

“What in God’s name is going on down there?”

A voice from above, Agnes. I looked up briefly, then back to Lila.

“What are you talking about…?”

“You’re gonna abandon me again, aren’t you?”

I froze at that. Tears were beginning to swell in her eyes.

Was paranoia a withdrawal symptom?

Before I knew it, she had already lunged at me, the table behind me scraping at the floor as she pinned my whole body, my back pressed against the cold metal, her hands closed around my throat.

“I should’ve known it. You’re SUCH an asshole, Adrian!!!”

The infection gave her a strength I never knew how to fight, and it didn’t take me long to realize. I looked to the door— nobody.

“First you take amber away from me, then you try and leave as well— like you’re trying to leave me more hurt than I already was..”

The look in her eyes was something I barely recognized.

“Don’t you get it…? I FUCKING need you!!! Now more than ever!!!”

I tried to wedge her grip away from my throat, but to no avail.

The smile that crept up on her face was broken.

“But don’t worry…” she said through tears.

“I’ll make sure you never leave me again.”

She was…squeezing harder.

“I’ll make sure my last memories of you will be us together, you in my arms.”

Her smile widened.

“Like it was always meant to be.”

Her tear drop fell onto my cheek.

Before anything else could happen, I notice mark return from my periphery but I wasn’t able to see him fully. Then— a needle jammed into her neck.

My eyes widened.

I saw what was being plunged down into her veins…amber liquid.

What the fuck was going on?

She fell to the floor, twitching. I wasn’t able to tell what was on her face…an expression of delight, or something else.

My face contorted into anger before I realized.

I pushed the old man with all I could.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?!?!? Why would you give her something like that!?!”

“You think I liked doing that? It’s what she needed. It stabilized her.”

“IT MADE HER CRAZIER THAN SHE ALREADY WAS!!!”

Mark remained silent. My fists tightened.

Agnes was almost down the stairwell when I saw her. Her arms were folded, a pensive yet disappointed look on her face.

“Like I said.”

I didn’t respond, my chest still heaving. I looked back at Mark.

“So this? This is your secret, huh?”

Mark grimaced.

“You manufacture Amber for those freaks? That’s why you’re off limits, right? That’s why they won’t touch you?”

My eyes went back to Agnes.

“You people just made life so much worse for the rest of us.”

“Get out.” She spat coldly.

I stood, looking at her for a moment.

“We were just fucking leaving.”

I said, heaving Lila onto my shoulder. I helped myself to a few supplies when I left. They weren’t gonna stop me, anyway.

I was nearing the entrance when I heard it.

Claps. Slow, mocking. Like they had finished watching some mediocre play they didn’t even pay to see.

“Bravo, bravo…”

The woman said, emerging. Silver grills caught the morning sunlight as she smiled.

Something dark twisted in my chest at just the sight of her. She had to be bad news.

“You were supposed to come next week.”

The old man said from behind me.

I turned to him briefly, before turning back.

“Plan’s changed.” She said, stepping closer, barely even acknowledging me as she passed.

I felt the man shuffle back. More of her goons entered the room. Same look, same haunting eyes of molten amber.

My whole body stiffened.

“See, I kinda sorta found myself some new recruits. So…your wonder drug’s running out pretty fast.”

Eventually, she was eye to eye with him.

“So make me a new batch. Boss’ orders.”

The man’s words came out stammered.

“It doesn’t work like that—.. the making of the drug is complicated. T— there’s a whole process to it that you don’t—..”

The woman closed her eyes, raising a finger.

A beat passed.

She opened them.

Yet, before she said anything else to him, she turned to me.

“I’m sorry, who the hell are you again?”

I stiffened at the doorway. I had almost forgotten I was leaving.

“This is private business. I’ll be nice and not kill you—or your friend there, so get out.”

Reluctantly, I turned back around, Lila still slumped on my shoulder.

The goons at the door eyed me as I left. I eyed them right back.

“Damn flesher…” someone muttered.

“So…right.” She turned back to the old man.

“I can’t give you that batch, Yasmine. It’s not ready…it’s unstable right now.”

She titled her head, almost looking genuinely confused.

“And here I’m thinking you had full understanding of the contract I gave to you so you and little slut you call a daughter won’t get killed.”

Agnes grimaced. Yasmine turned her glance from her and back to him.

“I don’t think you understand the severity of this situation right now. That little drug of yours is what keeps our city running. Without it, well..”

She let the words settle.

“You saw it, didn’t you? How feral they can get.”

She lowered her head to try and catch his expression

“Do as I say, when I say it. If I ask you to jump, you say how high.”

Mark kept his head down.

“But…I suppose the first demonstration wasn’t good enough.”

The woman suddenly made a signal to the men behind her.

They were about to move.

“WAIT!!!”

They paused.

“Wait…I’ll give it to you.” Mark said with a breath.

“Agnes.”

She flinched at her name being called.

“Go grab the keys to the lab.” Mark said, a waver in his voice.

She quickly did so, shutting the door behind her.

The woman smiled to herself.

“Boss?” A man said from behind, gun in hand. She turned to him.

“The kid you let walk out…he looks like the flesher that escaped. The one that slaughtered anyone who tried to prevent him from leaving.”

Yasmine frowned. “What?”

The sound of a gunshot tore through the entire building, and it wasn’t Yasmine or from any of her goons.

Smoke curled from my barrel as the man in front of me dropped, his body hitting the floor with a wet thud.

For half a second, nobody moved.

Then everything exploded.

Yasmine’s men reached for their weapons. I didn’t wait for them to get steady. I fired again, shifting to the side as a shot cracked past my ear and splintered the wall behind me.

The latticed hummed in my system, like something foreign controlling my movements.

One rushed me from the left. I stepped inside his swing and drove the butt of my gun into his jaw before firing into his chest. Another came from the right. I ducked, felt the rush of air over my head, rolled across the floor, and shot upward before he could turn.

This wasn’t luck. They were sloppy. Overconfident. Used to scaring people, not fighting someone who fought back.

A bullet grazed my sleeve. Another shattered glass behind me. I kept moving, never standing still long enough to be pinned.

Bodies fell.

One by one.

When the noise finally thinned out, the only one left standing across from me was Yasmine.

My gun was steady when I aimed it at her.

She raised her hands slowly. Her eyes flicked around at the bodies of her men, then back at me.

“This isn’t over…for any of you.” She said, stumbling over a dead body that belonged to one of hers.

I watched her get close enough to the entrance, before shooting her dead in the back. She fell in the bloodied pile of corpses.

“Yes…it is.”

I expected guilt. It never came.

Like I’d ever let her report back to whatever boss was waiting for me.

I shoved my gun back into my pocket, looking at the man. He was staring at me like he didn’t know what I was.

“W—…”

My eyes narrowed.

“Why did you—”

“Repayment.” I said. He looked like I struck him.

Agnes burst into the room, frantic, breathless— before taking in the death around her. I looked at her once, before turning back to him.

“For helping my friend.” I added.

A beat passed.

“Helping people,” I said, meeting Mark’s stare. “is about the only thing that makes anyone feel human these days, right?”

His mouth twitched like he almost believed that.

I turned toward the exit.

“WAIT—!” He called after me. “Where are you going???”

“Got places to be.”

“Theyll be back.”

I stopped in my tracks.

“Someone’ll replace that one, and another will come. Please…I won’t be able to— we’ll die..”

“Not my problem.” I stepped over a body as i continued.

“My daughter and I will be vulnerable to those vultures! We need your help! We need your protection—!”

I looked over my shoulder at that.

A radio on the woman’s dead body crackled before I was able to speak.

A distorted voice came through:

“Yasmine? Status report. Did you secure the batch?”

Silence.

Then:

“Yasmine? Do we need to come over there?”

God fucking damn it.

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