novelraw Chapter 450: The Queen Eats First
Chapter 450: The Queen Eats First
Sera tore the heart out of the man’s chest in one smooth pull, and the CDC guard was dead before the organ even hit her mouth
The muscle was tougher, richer than the other flesh she had ripped off him. She bit through it, chewed, and swallowed the pieces down. Warmth spread through her limbs and softened a tension along her spine she had not realized was there.
Behind her, boots shifted. Rifle straps creaked. Someone shouted.
Aerenyx’s voice cut across it all, quiet but edged. "Stay back," he warned the others as they inched forward toward the blood and carnage, their own creatures pacing deep inside them. "The queen eats first."
Lachlan let out a breath, half a sound that might have become a laugh in a different world. Zubair stayed where he was, watching, ready. Alexei did not move forward. None of them reached for the fallen man.
Her creature approved. Good. They remember. You eat first. They are not starving. They can wait.
The second pacing guard yanked his rifle up, hands shaking. His finger slammed the trigger. The shot went off wild, aim broken by panic. The bullet would have hit her shoulder if it had kept its path.
Instead, Alexei lifted his hand.
Cold slid across the air. Frost blossomed on the weapon mid-flight. The bullet slowed as the frost thickened over it, then lost its path entirely and dropped to the dirt with a dull thud.
The guard stared at his gun, giving Lachlan the moment he needed.
He reached the man in three strides and slammed his palm against the guard’s chest. Electricity poured from his skin in a controlled burst. The guard’s back arched. His jaw clenched hard enough that his teeth clicked. The muscles in his neck and arms seized in a locked line.
Lachlan cut the flow before anything ruptured.
The guard collapsed in a heap, breathing but out.
Sera wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The taste on her tongue told her she had taken enough. Her hunger eased from sharp to steady. Her creature settled, content without being sleepy.
The booth door flew open.
The first guard out had his pistol in both hands. His stance was textbook, right until his eyes took in the shredded man at her feet. The sight broke his focus for one heartbeat.
It was enough.
She grabbed the front of his uniform and yanked him sideways, slamming his back against the metal booth wall. His head hit the frame with a solid knock. His grip faltered and the gun dipped.
She did not bother with his throat. She was not hungry enough to waste time opening it.
Her hand hit his lower chest instead, fingers spearing in just below the ribs.
The resistance of skin and muscle gave way under the force. His breath left in a shocked grunt. Her fingers closed around wet heat. She twisted, tore, and stepped back as blood and organ mass spilled into her hand.
His stomach and a coil of intestine sagged free of his body.
He screamed once, high and short, and then sagged to the ground.
She did not eat those pieces. Her creature dismissed them. Poor quality. Too much waste. Leave it. You have enough.
The second booth guard tried to climb out through the window. He got one leg over, then stuck. Terror made him clumsy. His boot heel scraped against the outer wall.
Zubair reached out and caught his ankle, holding him there. "This one?" he asked without looking away from Sera.
She glanced at the trapped man. His terror smelled sharp and thin. His body had less meat on it. She was no longer hungry enough to care.
"No," she said. "He is not worth it. Let him go. Maybe he will understand his place on the food chain."
Her creature agreed. Small. Stringy. Let him live scared. Fear will season the stories he tells.
Zubair released his grip. The guard slid backward through the window and fell inside the booth. There was a thump and a choked sob that none of them bothered to acknowledge.
In the tower above, another guard scrambled to swing his rifle toward them.
Alexei’s gaze snapped up.
Frost climbed the supports in a visible sheen. The air around the tower cooled hard enough that breath would have steamed if anyone had cared to look. Metal stiffened. The guard’s fingers went numb on the trigger.
His shot went wide, cutting through empty air over their heads. A second later, Lachlan raised his hand and sent a short bolt along the metal rails. It crawled up the ladder in a bright line. The guard jerked once and slumped forward over the rail, unconscious.
"Annoying," Alexei said. "But not dangerous."
Lachlan shrugged. "He’ll wake up with a story to tell," he said.
Sera stepped to the booth and peered inside. Panels lined one wall. A screen flickered with camera feeds. Control switches were labeled with colored strips of tape and rushed handwriting. None of it interested her more than the large lever with a heavy plastic guard over it.
"Open the gate," she muttered, cocking her head to the side.
Lachlan slipped past her, flipped the guard up, and pulled the lever. The mechanism protested with a low groan before engaging. The outer gate slid aside in a slow, grinding motion. Dust scraped along the track.
As the gate moved, a shrill alarm began to wail from deeper inside the facility. The sound bounced between the buildings.
Her creature listened to it. They are afraid. They do not know what came through their fence. They think it is another outbreak.
"Inner fence," Alexei said, nodding toward the second line of defense beyond the open gate.
They moved as a group.
The gap between fences was a clean lane of dirt and cement. Small black nodes sat half-buried in the ground, spaced in even rows. Cameras mounted on short posts watched the corridor. The top of the inner fence bristled with thicker wire. The faint shimmer of current flickered along it.
"They really do not want visitors," Lachlan chuckled with a shake of his head.
Zubair eyed the wire. "Kill the current," he grunted, not replying to the other man.
Lachlan focused. He reached toward the live fence with his senses rather than his hand. The crackle of electricity across the metal grew sharper under his attention, then wavered as he pulled. The charge flowed toward him like water following a slope. The faint glow dimmed. The crackle died.
"Off," he announced with a proud smile on his face.
Aerenyx stepped past Sera and let his presence roll outward. Some of the black ground nodes responded at once. Their little status lights winked out. The smell of hot circuitry briefly joined the air before fading.
"Those are blind," he said. "The others are not."
Sera did not slow. She stepped onto the sensor line.
One active node under her boot clicked. A panel in the concrete wall to her right snapped open. A small automated turret slid out and pivoted toward her with a mechanical whine.
Alexei flicked his fingers in its direction.
Ice sheeted over the turret in an instant. Its inner workings seized. The mechanism locked and stayed frozen halfway through its targeting arc.
"I am still tired of guns," he grunted, entirely unimpressed.
"Then we keep breaking them," she answered with a shrug.
Her creature approved, warm and pleased. Teeth are honest. Guns are not.