Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 85: I Wasn’t There To Protect Her

Chapter 85: I Wasn’t There To Protect Her

It was a straight line from the staff entrance to the Emergency department.

Nothing really moved in the hospital except for the men and the insects that were able to get inside to feast on whatever the zombies left behind.

Maybe it was a good thing that they put on the masks. Some of the insects had gathered into large, black clouds over top of dried blood that if the guys breathed in wrong, they would be choking on bugs.

Bai Long Qiang stopped outside a door with the glass window broken.

"Her office," he grunted, his voice still low.

Fan Teng Fei slipped around Bai Long Qiang and Cheng Bo Jing; his gun pointed down so as not to accidentally shoot them. He nudged the door, and it quickly swung open.

The five of them filed in, trying to avoid the glass on the floor from crunching under their heels.

"Do you think she was in here when that happened?" asked Si Dong, pointing to the window. It was the first time he had spoken since they found out about the zombie tide.

None of the men responded, but they searched the floor for the telltale sign of blood. If she had been caught, there would have been a lot of blood in the room.

"No blood," grunted Ye Yao Zu, trying to work around the lump in his throat. "If she was in here, she got out."

"How?" asked Bai Long Qiang, his eyes narrowed as he tried to picture what might have happened inside the small office.

There was not enough room for her to get around any zombies if they arrived after her. And she wouldn’t have gone into the office if she saw her window busted open.

In fact, it would have made more sense that she came in here after shit hit the fan and locked the door behind her. Then the zombie would have followed her here, broke the window, and unlocked the door.

He walked over to the single window in the office and looked around it.

No sign that it had been disturbed.

Looking out, he saw that the bushes under it showed no signs of distress or branches having been broken.

She didn’t jump out the window.

"Where could she have gone?" he asked softly, looking at the men around him.

"Not out the door. Not out the window. Up?" mused Cheng Bo Jing as he looked up at the ceiling tiles. One had been removed.

"Yan Teng Fei!"

"On it," grunted the man as he let go of his weapon and hooked it onto his pack. Standing up on the desk, he stuck his head up into the ceiling.

"She could have left this way, but there is no way for me to know for sure. This foam tile won’t hold my weight like it would have Wang Tian Mu’s."

Bai Long Qiang grunted. "So it is possible she managed to escape."

"Yes," replied Fan Teng Fei as he jumped down off the desk.

"Let’s check the ER first, just in case," ordered Bai Long Qiang, ignoring the men with their raised eyebrows.

It wasn’t that he wanted to be like this. It wasn’t like he disagreed with what the guys were saying. They were his best friends. The only ones he trusted to watch his back. And more importantly, watch Wang Tian Mu’s back.

But he would never forgive himself if he did not explore every possible place she could be. If they ignored the hospital and went straight to the house, and she wasn’t there and died in the hospital instead, then it would destroy him.

No. He had to make sure she wasn’t here, and then he could cross it off his list.

"Let’s go," he barked quietly. Taking point, he walked quickly yet silently down the hall into the ER.

Pushing open the door, the sight that greeted him was worse than any war he had been in.

Blood covered every area of the large department. There was even congealed blood on the ceiling. They looked like they were going to drop to the floor any second now.

Bloody handprints trailed along the walls to the door, while claw marks followed quickly after.

There were no bodies anywhere. The beds were dyed in blood, but the bones were carelessly piled in the corner of each bay.

"Bai Long Qiang," said Ye Yao Zu, calling the other man over. He was knelt down in a puddle of blood in the hallway in front of a stretcher.

He pulled out something shiny from the puddle and wiped it on his pant leg.

"That’s Wang Tian Mu’s," breathed Bai Long Qiang, taking the engagement ring that he had given Wang Tian Mu from between Ye Yao Zu’s fingers.

The other three men crowed around, staring at the ring.

"It means nothing," grunted Cheng Bo Jing as he quickly turned around and continued to go through the rest of the emergency department. "It could have fallen out of her pocket."

"She never took the ring off," argued Bai Long Qiang as he gripped it in his hand. He brought his forehead down to his hand and fought back the tears. This was not the time to cry.

"That you know of," snapped back Cheng Bo Jing. "She never took it off that you know of. But how many of us don’t keep their wedding rings on while out on missions?"

"It’s not the same, and you know it," replied Bai Long Qiang. He reached up around his neck for the dog tags resting there. Letting go of his gun, he took off the chain and opened the clasp. Treading the ring through so that it rested over top of his military ID, he snapped the chain back together and put it back over his head.

"It is the same. She is a doctor. She works with her hands all the time and maybe doesn’t like the feeling of the ring on her finger, or maybe it won’t fit under her gloves. You can’t say she died simply because you found a ring."

"You think I want her to be dead?!? Is that it!?" screamed Bai Long Qiang as he pulled back his right fist and let it fly, clipping Cheng Bo Jing in the jaw. "She is my soulmate! My one and only! And I wasn’t here to protect her! I failed her!"

"She’s not dead," growled Cheng Bo Jing, not responding to the hit. The man could have one, but only one.

"She is. And now there is nothing left to live for."

"Until I find her body, she is alive. End of story," snarled Cheng Bo Jing as he stormed out of the ER. She was alive and he needed to find her.

How dare Bai Long Qiang give up on her like that.