Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 295: All I Could See

Chapter 295: All I Could See

To say that my men weren’t impressed by the fact that I spat out blood like that chick vomited in The Exorcist was an understatement.

As soon as it happened, my men were up on their feet, weapons drawn as they advanced toward Chang Guo Zi, But whatever they had planned needed to be put on hold.

"Uh, guys," I grunted, trying to wipe the blood from my mouth on my sleeve. But it wasn’t me that I was worried about. "Guys!" I yelled. "I need you!"

As one, the guys turned away from the leader of Phoenix Rising and came back to my side. "What do you need?" asked Cheng Bo Jing, looking me up and down.

And then he saw it, too.

I held out a stunned Wang Chang Ming to Cheng Bo Jing, and the man took him in his arms, not caring about the fact that the boy was covered in blood. In my blood. "He needs a bath."

"Of course," grunted Cheng Bo Jing. "What do you say, Little Man? As your favorite Daddy, why don’t I give you a bath."

"Is mommy going to be okay?" asked the child, coming out of his stupor. He looked over at me, concern written all over his little face.

"I will be just fine," I assured him. "And Papa will make sure of it, won’t you?" I continued turning to Bin An Sha, daring him to say something different.

"Of course, she is going to be fine," smiled the man as he came over and rubbed Wang Chang Ming’s head, not caring that it was wet with blood.

I really wasn’t getting over seeing him covered in blood. It was definitely something that I would make sure never happened again, that was for sure.

When Cheng Bo Jing and Si Dong left the room to clean up the boy, our son, I turned my attention to the man standing in front of me.

"You," I said, my voice becoming deeper, more uncontrollable. "You tried to force my hand and give you an answer that you wanted to hear. Fine then. You want to hear your future? You want to know what you need to do?" I continued with a hiss.

Squirt poked his head up from where it was resting on my collarbone under my skin and hissed at the man.

Chang Guo Zi turned pale and dropped to his knees while Hu Wen Cheng just sat in his chair, not moving a muscle.

"I’m sorry," begged Chang Guo Zi, "I am worried about my men and my friends."

"The same men that didn’t listen to us in the first place? The same men that were warned to leave the women but refused to do so? The same men who thought it was nothing more than petty jealousy on my end that I didn’t want the sirens in my city? Those are the men you seek to protect?"

The rage inside of me was... different. I could feel everything going on, but it was like I was watching it out of a window, unable to do anything about it. So, while I felt the rage, I also felt apathetic to the whole thing.

I liked Chang Guo Zi; I even respected the man. But that didn’t mean I would let him just use me as he saw fit. I was not a mat to be walked over. I was someone to be feared.

That feeling, that desire to be feared, swelled up in me, and I rose to my feet, dropping the blood-soaked blanket to the ground as I took measured paces forward.

I could feel the blood drying into a sticky substance on my chin, and I could feel it seeping into my sweater, but I ignored the feeling.

"Sirens?" asked Hu Wen Cheng. "What is this about sirens?"

"You didn’t tell him?" I smirked, already knowing the answer. "Tsk, tsk."

"I don’t know anything about sirens. The teams found about thirty women in a mall. They claimed to be part of a human farm, where zombies keep them contained inside of buildings with everything they need. Then, when the zombies are hungry, they could go there and take one of the humans," explained Cheng Guo Zi quickly. But the man was forgetting some of the finer points.

"I told you that it wasn’t what it seemed to be. I warned you that if the women came here, the zombies would follow, and there would be nothing but death. And what did you do?" I hissed, and Squirt hissed after me.

He opened his mouth, and everyone could see his fangs dripping with venom.

"I couldn’t leave my men to their own devices," sputtered the team leader. He looked at Hu Wen Cheng, expecting him to agree with him. But before the other man could walk into a trap, I held up my hand and stopped him.

"You demanded an answer, and when I gave it to you, you didn’t listen. I don’t care that you still went with them or that you are the ones to bring death here. That is on you. But what I don’t like is giving an answer and having it ignored. You ignored me and then went off and did what you wanted to do anyway. Now you have done the same thing. When I didn’t give you an answer that you liked, you tried to demand another one out of me."

I snorted before spinning around and went back to my chair. Sitting down, my back straight and my legs crossed, I looked at the man who didn’t belong to me.

"You asked your question, and you have your answer. Do you wish to try again? Or do you want to walk out of this room alive? Just how far does your loyalty to your men go?"

There was a small voice in the back of my mind begging me to backtrack, that if I kept going down this route, I would never be able to eat Yuan Bao’s food again. But I couldn’t back down. This was too important.

He was using me for his own personal gain, just like the Alpha used to do. Oh, sure, he seemed a lot nicer about it. Almost to the point where I didn’t notice it. But now that I saw it, it was all that I could see.