Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse
Chapter 304: Just Breathe

Chapter 304: Just Breathe

"Report!" demanded Réne the moment Adam walked into his office. The ground had stopped shaking about ten minutes ago, but as it stood, Réne still had no idea what had brought about the earthquake.

"You would do well to remember that I am not one of your underlings that you can boss around," replied Adam, his voice deceptively calm. However, it was only when he was calm that he was the greatest threat, and the two of them knew that.

However, this time, Réne was not willing to back down. "Funny," he smirked, his smile sharp enough to cut glass. "Because from where I am sitting, that is exactly who you are."

Pushing away from his desk, Réne walked around, his fingers trailing over the oak surface as he started at the other man. "I mean, you are in my sanctuary, using my resources, consuming my supplies, using my people, which would make YOU my underling. But if I am mistaken, then feel free to leave. I’m sure you remember where the exit is."

Adam looked at the human in front of him. It would be nothing to him to kill Réne and take his position. The human should be grateful that Adam was even willing to grace him with his presence, let alone having a running tally of debts.

"One of the labs blew up," stated Adam, his voice somewhat amused. "We have no idea what caused it, but somehow, someway... a fire started and spread before we could put it out."

"Was anyone hurt?" asked Réne, brushing off the previous argument as he sat on the edge of his desk. "How far did the fire get?"

"We lost one of our more promising subjects," shrugged Adam. "And a handful of scientists. But worst of all, we lost most of our data when it came to the hounds. We are going to have to start from scratch again. It is going to take us years of work to return to where we were at."

Réne looked at Adam, trying to figure out how this man was more upset about the data being lost than his coworkers. Then again, that was Adam. He didn’t care about anyone other than himself.

"What do you need?" sighed Réne, already regretting the question. "I’ll see what I can do to help."

-----

Doctor Camille Hart looked around the inner compound, her mouth open in disbelief. People whose limbs were ripped off were now completely healed. In fact, Elijah, one single man, was able to heal more people than she ever thought possible.

Unless they were already dead, they were now stumbling around the main road, looking for their loved ones.

"What are you?" she breathed, her eyes going directly to Elijah as he stuck his hands in his pockets, not meeting her gaze.

"Yous donna want ta know de answer ta dat question," smirked Damien as he left Lucy’s side and clamped the other man on his shoulder.

"Are we done now?" asked Lucy, her face blank as she looked at Camille.

"No," scoffed the other woman, coming to her feet. Reaching forward, she tried to grab Elijah, only to have him dart out of her reach. "He is coming with me."

Lucy closed her eyes like she was trying to push down her temper, but Camille didn’t care. The girl was nothing more than that. A kid. Even if she was in her 20s, that didn’t make her mature enough for the current world.

In fact, by the way, men seemed to flock around her, Camille would hazard a guess that she had no idea how the world worked.

The girl opened her mouth a few times before simply shaking her head. "Whatever," sighed Lucy, leaning against her husband. "Do what you want with them."

Camille smirked, happy that she had won. It would take some dancing around Adam to keep Elijah off his radar, but it would be worth it, especially given how powerful he was. Sending out a prayer of thanks for whatever brought this silent man into her world, Camille once again tried to reach out and touch him.

"You don’t have to be scared," she assured him, pushing Damien out of the way. "I can and will protect you. With you on our side, humanity finally has a chance to survive this apocalypse."

----

I was done.

It really was just that simple.

Seraphina’s death was bothering me a lot more than it should have, and I just wanted to scream out my rage at just how unfair it was. Sure, I granted her wish. I sent her back to be reborn a year before the end of the world, but that didn’t fix her scars.

While she might no longer have the visible representation of what happened to her, that wouldn’t stop the nightmares from preying on her every night. And take it from someone who knows; the scars on your soul are so much worse than the scars on your skin.

The ones on your soul would never be able to heal. Anything that so much as brushed against them would cause you to bleed from the inside out.

"Do you know them?" asked Eric, his head dipped low so that he was whispering in my ear. And while I didn’t have a problem with him. That didn’t mean shit at the moment.

"I don’t," I snarled, needing to be alone. Turning around just as the doctor, who had no problem having me be stripped in front of everyone, started to make sweet promises to MY man, to MY Sin, I lost it.

’You need to breathe,’ whispered the voice inside my head. ’I know it’s a lot, and there are a lot of people around you right now, but unless you are willing to level the entire Sanctuary, I need you to breathe.’

’Are you telling me to calm down?’ I asked, my vision going blurry as I tried to focus on the people laughing and crying in front of me. A lot of them were staring at Tank, whispering in fear as if he was going to kill them all in their sleep.

I snorted at that idea. It wasn’t the Hellhound they had to worry about. It was the one holding his leash.