novelraw Chapter 473: That Way
Chapter 473: That Way
The ridge did not echo anymore.
Zubair noticed that first, because he was used to listening for the moment when sound meant danger again. Screams, gunfire, shouting, the sharp crack of something breaking where it shouldn’t... none of that lingered anymore.
The best part was that this quiet wasn’t tentative or fragile. It sat heavy and settled, like the land itself had decided it was finished hosting violence for the day and sent everyone on their way.
Or it would have if... you know... anyone from the other side was still standing.
Smoke still drifted in uneven bands, catching sunlight and breaking it into dull streaks. Burned metal gave off a faint ticking sound as it cooled. Ice crackled and fractured where Psycho’s cold had bitten too deeply into the stone. Somewhere lower down the slope, something collapsed in on itself with a soft, final sound.
No one reacted.
The fight had ended minutes ago, but this was the first moment that Zubair really trusted that it was over.
He turned his focus inward and pulled his heat back where it belonged, tamping it down until it sat coiled and quiet beneath his skin. His hands unclenched slowly with his shoulders following shortly after. Only then did he let himself look fully at the space around them.
Bodies lay where they had fallen. Some were intact, but the majority weren’t. It looked like an entire horde of zombies had come through this pass, tearing their way through the ’helpless’ people here.
Even Psycho and Aerenyx were picking up parts of arms and legs as they walked through the carnage, taking bits of the flesh like they were at a carnival or country fair.
Gear was scattered in useless pieces, stripped of purpose the moment the people inside it had lost the will to fight. He was tempted to pick it up and go through it, trying to figure out what they might need in the future, but this was one of the first times that he trusted himself more than any gun in his hand.
Besides, the Black-Badge line was gone entirely now, reduced to debris and memory. None of it mattered anymore.
Sera stood a short distance away, half-turned toward the ridge as if she were still considering whether anything there deserved further attention. Blood marked her mouth and chin. It streaked across her hands and along the inside of one forearm. Soot darkened the edge of her cheekbone, but it didn’t touch her eyes.
She looked... comfortable.
Her posture wasn’t defensive. Her weight rested on one hip, relaxed and loose, and she hummed softly under her breath, a wandering tune that didn’t seem to belong to any song Zubair knew. It rose and fell without pattern, content in its own existence.
The sound hit him harder than the explosions had.
His creature noticed immediately. She is still standing.
Zubair didn’t answer out loud. He didn’t need to. He was already moving.
He didn’t approach her directly. He came in from the side, slow and deliberate, making sure she would feel him before she ever needed to look. He had learned early on that Sera hated being crowded and hated being startled even more. Presence mattered more than proximity.
He stopped just close enough.
She glanced at him, eyes bright, mouth curved in something dangerously close to a smile.
"You look busy," she said lightly.
"Only if you want me to be," he replied.
She considered that for a second, then shrugged and went back to humming, gaze drifting away again.
Zubair took that as permission.
He scanned her quickly, cataloguing without staring. Her injuries were already gone. Whatever had torn her open earlier hadn’t even left a mark. But the blood remained, and the soot, and the sticky residue of someone else’s insides that clung to her skin and hair.
His creature bristled. She fed while standing. While exposed. While you were distracted.
’I know,’ Zubair answered silently.
You would not allow that for anyone else under your care, so why are you allowing it for our female?
Zubair exhaled slowly through his nose. He didn’t argue because the creature wasn’t wrong. He had taken squads through terrain that wanted them dead and still found ways to make sure everyone ate, slept, and stayed dry. He had done it without supplies, without shelter, without time.
And yet Sera had bled in front of him.
He fixed it the only way he could.
He turned his head slightly. "Psycho."
Psycho stood several paces away, posture loose, attention split between Sera and Aerenyx. Ice still crawled lazily along his skin, creeping and retreating like something alive. His eyes slid to Zubair without moving the rest of him.
"I need water," Zubair said. "Clean water. But since I can’t get that... I need you to freeze this."
Psycho smiled faintly.
Without a word, frost bloomed in the air between them. Moisture snapped into shape and dropped into Zubair’s hands as a slab of clear ice, smooth and solid.
Zubair didn’t hesitate. He drove controlled heat into it, slow and precise, melting it down until it soaked into a strip of fabric torn from his own sleeve. Not hot. Not steaming. Just cool enough to be soothing.
His creature watched closely. Better. Now do not make her ask for it.
Zubair stepped back into Sera’s space and lifted the cloth where she could see it.
"For you," he said.
She tilted her head, eyes flicking from the cloth to his face. Amusement sparked there, quick and bright.
"Huh," she murmured, cocking her head to the side. Zubair could tell that her creature was probably in more control than she was willing to admit to. "Thanks. It blood gets... uncomfortable when it dries. I think I might kill for an actual hot shower."
With a shrug of her shoulders like she wasn’t all that put out over the idea of not having a shower, she took the cloth without ceremony and cleaned her hands before moving on to her wrists, then her jaw and cheeks.
When she was looking a bit more... human... she held the cloth for a moment, then tossed it back to Zubair without looking.
He caught it automatically.
Sera reached into her space and pulled out Oogie Boogie, hugging the plush against her chest and pressing her cheek into it with a satisfied sigh. Her humming picked up again, louder now, and she closed her eyes for a few seconds like someone settling into comfort.
Lachlan watched the entire exchange with an expression Zubair hadn’t seen in a while.
Relief.
"Well," Lachlan said after a beat, voice light, "I was going to ask who’s cleaning all this up, but I’m thinking the answer is ’not us.’"
Sera cracked one eye open. "You’re not allowed to complain. You killed just as many. Don’t think that I don’t see what you were doing."
"I’m not complaining," Lachlan replied immediately. "I’m acknowledging the mess and choosing to emotionally detach. I’m sure that there are still cleaning crews who would be more than happy to deal with the cleanup on aisle 8."
She laughed softly, and the sound carried in the quiet like something precious.
Zubair felt his creature ease back, tension loosening just a little.
Across the clearing, Psycho and Aerenyx stood opposite each other, unmoving. Their attention flicked to Sera often enough that Zubair didn’t miss the undercurrent.
They weren’t posturing.
They were waiting.
Waiting to see who she would look at next. Waiting to see who would move first. Waiting to see who would be allowed closer without words.
Zubair stepped subtly between them.
It didn’t work.
He wasn’t insulted by that. He understood it.
They were not human anymore. They did not see the world the way he did. And while Sera allowed him close, allowed him to touch and tend and care, she did not belong to him the way she belonged to them.
That didn’t mean his place was lesser.
It meant it was different.
He turned back to her, because she was the only one who mattered. "Do you want to sit," he asked, keeping his tone neutral, "or do you want to head out? I think we have overstayed our welcome if I am being honest."
She considered the question seriously. Her gaze drifted over the ridge one last time, taking in the wreckage, the silence, the absence of challenge.
Then she smiled.
"I want to go," she announced with a firm nod, her pitch black eyes sparkling with merriment.
Zubair nodded, not bothering to ask where she wanted to go.
Sera reached into her space and another truck slid into existence beside the first, engine already humming low and steady. She climbed into the passenger seat without hesitation, settling in with Oogie Boogie hugged close, still humming under her breath.
Lachlan whistled softly. "She really likes that trick."
Zubair took the driver’s seat and started the engine. Psycho and Aerenyx moved to either side of the truck, neither willing to take their eyes off the other until Sera spoke again.
"If you don’t hurry up, we are going to leave you behind," she said mildly, raising an eyebrow as they quickly fought for a spot in the back of the truck.
Soon enough, the truck got on its way, the tires crunching over stone and debris as Sera leaned back in her seat, eyes half-lidded, humming without interruption.
The ridge slipped away behind them.
Zubair drove for a while in silence, letting the road stretch ahead without naming it. Then, after a few minutes, he glanced at her.
"Do you have any idea where you want to go?" he asked.
Sera opened her eyes, smiled, and pointed toward the setting sun.
"That way."