Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 273: A Horrible Idea

Chapter 273: A Horrible Idea

I stared at the golden coin in my hand that was roughly the size of my palm. Beautifully designed, the red dragon looked lifelike. Curled up, it looked like it was about to leap off the metal and attack whoever was dumb enough to hold it. A blue ball in the shape of the world rested in its right talon.

I could still hear Liu Hao Yu’s words as he handed the medallion over to me right before we left his house for the final time. He promised me that I should show it to anyone in the world, and they would be honor bound to help me.

It was his way of repaying the gift of his health. I didn’t have a set number of times I could use it or anything like that. As far as he was concerned, I was his heir, and everyone would treat me as such.

Not knowing how I felt about becoming an heir to a criminal organization, I still bowed my head and accepted the piece of art. I told him about City D and my plans to return there, and he assured me that as soon as he had finished cleaning house and dealing with a few things, he would join me there.

I had always assumed that I was a loner by choice. That I wanted not to be around people or dealing with them. But I have since learned that, when left to my own devices, I need to care for people.

That was who I was inside.

So, little by little, I was going to build my own city sanctuary. I already had the head of the Red Dragon Syndicate planning on coming, not to mention the Black Mountain Syndicate as well. Maybe I could approach Chang Guo Zi and offer him a place in my new city.

The plans whirled in my head with every swipe of my finger over the dragon.

However, my snake tattoo seemed to take offense to my fascination with the dragon, and he manipulated himself so that the majority of his head was on my palm and his snout rested on the tip of my thumb. Now, instead of feeling the cold metal under my fingers, I was feeling the softness and warmth of the viper.

"I am going to need to name you too, aren’t I?" I asked, holding up my palm so that I was having a ’face to face’ talk with the snake.

The head emerged from my skin as he hissed in agreement, his tongue coming out of his mouth to touch my cheek.

Okay then.

"I feel that I need to warn you that I suck at picking out names," I continued the one-sided conversation like the shadow creature could completely understand me.

His head swung around until he was looking at Hei perched on Fan Teng Fei’s monk’s staff.

"Okay, maybe I am a bit better than him, but the only name that comes to mind is Inky," I shrugged. Sure, it was easy to name a black bird after the color, but it wasn’t much better calling a tattoo Inky.

The snake shook his head back and hissed at me. "Squirt?" I asked. To me, that was a bit more of an octopus’ name.... but since I was keeping both feet firmly on dry land, the chances of me having an octopus were slim to none.

The creature tilted his head to the side, thinking about the name. "Ekans? Arboc?" I pressed, more than a little happy, when the viper shook its head. Yeah, he definitely didn’t fit my idea of a Pokémon, but it was worth a try.

"Then we’ll stick with Squirt," I nodded, petting the very top of the viper’s head. His scales, while soft, sharpened into points at the bottom of each one and then rose slightly, reminding me of chainmail or something.

He was like no other snake that I had ever seen, and he was all mine.

His name decided, he returned back to my skin, flowing up my cloth covered arm until I could feel him pressed against my entire back, more prominent than ever. His head came up over my right shoulder and merged into my neck.

"Pleased to meet you, Healer. I am Squirt... your shadow." The words flowed into my head, and I could feel the affection coming off of him. For the first time since I discovered him, I could feel Squirt’s body moving restlessly against my back as if reassuring me that he would always protect it.

Smiling to myself, I looked over to my right, where Cheng Bo Jing was still carrying the boy, Wang Chang Ming.

Taking in a deep breath, I allowed the sense of contentment to flow through me until it felt like even the trees around us expanded, taking in a deep breath of their own.

"We still need to find supplies," grunted Fang Ting Guang, completely ruining my happiness.

"And we aren’t stopping you," replied Bai Long Qiang with a shrug of his shoulders. "Not our fault that you didn’t show up until now."

"No, but it is your fault that we had to go rescue two of your men," shot back Jia Yu Sheng, adjusting his grip on his gun.

"Funny... I don’t remember it that way," returned Cheng Bo Jing. He shifted Wang Chang Ming in his arms until he was resting against his hip and side instead of in front of his chest.

Maybe I would have to rethink bringing all of the teams with us to City D.

Wrinkling my nose, I extended out my energy as Squirt hissed in my ear. "A single bite, and you don’t need to deal with him anymore." There was a vision in my head suddenly of Squirt biting Jia Yu Sheng’s ankle and bright green venom traveling through his blood until it killed him.

Huh. Didn’t see that coming.

"Let’s save that for later," I whispered, caressing my neck where the head of the ’tattoo’ was.

"We passed a big shopping mall when we first arrived," interjected Chang Guo Zi, trying to calm everyone down. "It’s getting later and later, and very soon, we aren’t going to be able to see in front of us, let alone defend against a zombie attack. I say we head there for the night and grab the supplies in the morning. What do you say?"

I say it was a horrible idea. But sure, why not?