Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 152: What He Wanted

Chapter 152: What He Wanted

The creature with the white eyes paused for a second, his head cocking to the side as he studied Fan Teng Fei and Si Dong.

"You belong to the Healer?" he asked. Fan Teng Fei was sure that if the darkness had eyebrows, one of them would be raised.

Fan Teng Fei nodded his head, not backing down from that statement.

"You better hurry up and lock yourself up," he continued. "The calvary is coming, and they aren’t going to stop for anyone."

Fan Teng Fei and Si Dong nodded their heads. "Understood. And thank you," called out Si Dong as he and his teammate raced around the creature and sprinted as fast as they could to the gates.

More and more people were stumbling out of the stands, the skin literally melting off of their bodies until there was nothing left but a skeleton.

However, something like that should have killed them, so why didn’t they die?

Did they not know they were dead?

Si Dong and Fan Teng Fei made it through the gates and into the first empty cage they had found that was opened. More and more skeletons were racing in after them as if the hounds of Hell were on their heels.

"Si Dong," hissed a voice in the cage beside him. Turning to look at the man as he desperately tried to keep the door to his cage shut, he saw Ye Yao Zu. "What’s going on?"

"The dead are running in the streets right now," he said, trying to keep his normal level of humor as he tilted his head toward the skeletons trying to get in.

It reminded him of that animated movie where the bird was locked in a cage, begging his friends to let him out when they were begging him to let them in.

Only this time, he wasn’t going to let anyone in.

----

Rip frantically stroked the cat in his arms. Luckily for both of them, the cat was big enough to withstand the petting.

He was not going gentle, but he was stressed, so the cat was acting as his stressor ball. If he didn’t have him, he would be pacing back and forth, his emotions setting his Little Bird off more than she currently was.

She looked to him to figure out her level of safety, and if he was stressed about something, she was ten times worse.

Nope. He would sit here with a giant cat on his lap and pretend that everything was okay.

The woman from the bunker... Li Dai Lu... was talking nonstop and while he wasn’t paying attention to her actual words, he could tell that they were not reassuring the Healer at all.

In fact, if Rip had to guess, the Healer was getting worse and worse with every word out of her mouth.

Too distracted by everything, he started giving out one-word answers, his brain reverting back to the Reaver in him as he braced himself to fight.

What, exactly, he was going to be fighting, he had no idea. But he needed to be prepared just in case. And the worst thing he could do would be to just react.

"My reason for living, remember?" came the soft voice of the woman behind him, and he looked over his shoulder only to see her pale even more.

Her eyes were wide, her pupils blown to the point where there was a blue ring of her natural iris around her brown contact lens.

Fuck. She was spiraling.

Her heart was starting to beat faster, practically coming out of her chest with each beat, and her breathing was ragged.

He needed to calm her down, but there was no way he could do that with her in the cage.

At the same time, he wasn’t going to open it either.

No, that was her safe haven, and he would keep her in it as long as possible.

He continued to stroke the cat as he listened to her telling the other woman what she could and could not have when pregnant and holy fuck did that list seem to go on forever.

No baths?!? Seriously? That sucked.

No sushi, no tuna, no sliced meats, no alcohol; the list kept getting longer and longer with every word she spoke.

In fact, he was so caught up in the list that he missed the presence arriving, cloaked in shadows. Two bright black stones shone side by side as if the shadow had eyes of his own.

A shiver went down Rip’s back, and for the first time since he was a child in London, he felt fear.

But he didn’t have the ability to be scared right now. His woman needed him to protect her, and he would battle the very devil to keep her out of his grasp.

He jumped to his feet, the cat, Hades, falling to the ground in an irritated huff, but Rip didn’t care.

He crouched down in front of the shadow, keeping the cage with the Healer behind him. The creature would have to go through him to get to her, and he would not go easily to his death.

"Both of you, stand down," said Li Dai Lu from where she was perched on top of her cage like it was a fucking throne.

She should have been here a long time ago. She seemed to care so much about his woman, and yet, it took her years to get her ass here. Too busy getting knocked up or something.

Rip didn’t move. While she might be able to control the creature, she couldn’t control him.

But the creature listened to her and strolled out of the shadows.

It was one of the men from the bunker, the ones looking for the bikes.

He picked Li Dai Lu up, causing the cat to fall to the ground once again with a hiss. But neither man really cared about the cat. Settling himself on the cage, he placed Li Dai Lu in his lap and wrapped his arms around her.

Hades, seemingly giving up on everyone, sauntered over to his Little Bird’s cage as only a cat could and rubbed his body along the cage, a loud purr coming out of him as he tried to entice Wang Tian Mu to pet him.

Seeing that she was locked in a cage and couldn’t cuddle with him, he pawed at the cage and looked at Rip with narrowed eyes. When Rip didn’t move fast enough for him, the cat pawed at the door again, showing everyone what he wanted.

And seeing as Wang Tian Mu had reached through the bars and was petting him, it was pretty clear what he was expecting.

He wanted the woman out of the cage so she could lavish the appropriate amount of attention on him.