Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 294: Didn’t Like The Answer

Chapter 294: Didn’t Like The Answer

There was a knock on our door, startling all of us out of the conversation we were having with Wang Chang Ming. He had figured out names for all of his daddies, but he and Bai Long Qiang were still arguing over his.

Apparently, Grumpy Daddy was not acceptable to Bai Long Qiang, even though the rest of us thought it was hilarious, and Wang Chang Ming wasn’t willing to change his mind.

The knocking on the door came again and Bin An Sha sighed as he got off of the bed and left the room.

"What do you want?" we could hear him asking whoever was at the door, and the rest of the guys went to check things out as Rip and Si Dong stayed with us in the bedroom.

"Do you want Scary Daddy or Silly Daddy?" asked Si Dong as he entered my closet and crouched down in front of Wang Chang Ming and me.

"Could I have Scary Daddy?" asked the little boy hesitantly as he looked up at the man. "It’s not that I don’t like Silly Daddy; I like him a lot. I’m just a bit scared right now and..."

"You never have to justify yourself to me," assured Si Dong, and I could practically see the change undergo him as Scary Daddy came out. "We are both the same person, just two sides to the same coin. Silly Daddy thought that no one would like him when he was younger if he was only Scary Daddy.

"But I like you both!" shouted Wang Chang Ming. In a panic, he turned to look at me. "Tell him that I like them both! I don’t want to hurt Silly Daddy’s feelings! Make him come back."

"Shh," I comforted him, rubbing my hand up and down his back. "Silly Daddy knows that, and so does Scary Daddy. Don’t worry about hurting their feelings. They just want to make you as happy as you make us."

"I make you happy? No one has ever said that before. It was more like they were putting up with me until I became big enough for food."

"You make us very happy," I assured him.

But before I could say anything else, there was a knock outside of the bedroom door. "Firefly, you are wanted in the living room."

And just like that, the ants were back in full force.

-----

"Healer," bowed Hu Wen Cheng as I entered the living room with Wang Chang Ming in my arms. He didn’t want to be left alone in the closet, and I didn’t have the heart to do it either.

Whatever was going to happen, he deserved to know about it. He was a lot more mature than I first gave him credit for.

Chang Guo Zi looked startled when he saw how Hu Wen Cheng treated me, but before I could say anything, he quickly followed suit. "Healer," he grunted, dipping his head in a slight form of respect.

Bin An Sha led me over to an oversized chair and sat me down as Si Dong came up behind him and draped my pink fuzzy blanket over both me and Wang Chang Ming.

Once they were done fussing, the two men joined Rip to stand behind my chair.

"It’s started." I meant to ask it like a question, but as soon as I spoke, the words came out as a statement. The zombies were here. It has started.

"It has started," agreed Hu Wen Cheng as he took a seat in the chair across from me. The full length of the coffee table separated the two of us, but I could see the stress on his face.

"You’re worried," I mused, pretending that I didn’t almost have a full blown panic attack not two hours ago.

"I am. I have a lot of people in this city that look to me for protection, and it... bothers me that I can’t protect them like I should," admitted the man. His shoulders hunched forward, and there was a look of defeat on his face that I hadn’t seen before. Not even when I healed him in Camp Hell.

"Do you remember what Rip told you back then? When you warned him not to piss off a man that had nothing to live for?" I asked suddenly.

"He said that he used to believe that, too, until he found a treasure that he was willing to do anything to protect. Even come back from the dead," answered Hu Wen Cheng as he took in a deep breath and sat up straighter in his chair.

"And? Are you fighting because you have nothing left to lose? Or are you fighting because you found something to fight for?"

He paused for a moment and thought about his answer. "I am fighting because I’ve found something to fight for," he admitted.

"Good," I nodded. If I wanted my happily ever after, Hu Wen Cheng was going to play a huge part in that. Even if I didn’t know what that part would be. So, I needed him to want to fight.

"Healer," grunted Chang Guo Zi, interrupting the conversation. "What is it that we need to do?"

He looked straight at me when he asked the question, knowing what it was going to do to me. Wishing I could stab him with a knife, but knowing that it wouldn’t do any good, I opened my mouth.

"Nothing. You need to do nothing," came the answer drawn out of me, and even I was surprised by it. Here was me expecting to say some long, complicated plan, and the answer was... do nothing.

Okay. There was no way they were going to be able to screw that up, right?

"Nothing?" asked Chang Guo Zi, his eyes narrowing on me. "We are to do nothing as the zombies attack our city? Tell me, Healer, tell me, Prophet, what do we need to do?"

Hu Wen Cheng’s head snapped around to look at the other man, and even my men were ready to leap to my defense. He asked a question, and I had answered it. Just because he didn’t like the answer didn’t mean he could try to force me to change it.

I opened my mouth, but instead of words coming out, I spewed out blood.