novelraw Chapter 528: Hope Sanctuary Assets
Chapter 528: Hope Sanctuary Assets
The first truck crested the rise behind them with too much speed to be accidental.
Zubair saw it in the side mirror before anyone else spoke. A battered pickup with a welded grille and mud-caked panels, the kind Hope Sanctuary used for patrol runs beyond the perimeter. A second vehicle followed, then a third, spacing tight enough to keep each other in sight.
Psycho leaned forward between the front seats, eyes bright. "That’s Bishop."
Sera didn’t glance back. Her hands stayed loose on the wheel, posture relaxed, as if pursuit was a minor inconvenience. The smile she’d worn when she warned the family still lingered faintly, softened into something sharper.
"Fifteen," Lachlan said, looking over his shoulder without moving his body much. "Maybe more if they doubled up."
Zubair didn’t need the count to feel the intent. Those trucks weren’t coming out here to talk. They were coming out here because someone had told them they could still fix this with guns and numbers.
His creature stirred, immediately focused. They followed. They chose. Now they feed her enemies and feed her men.
Zubair’s jaw tightened. The word feed landed wrong and right at the same time. It wasn’t metaphor. It was logistics.
Sera finally spoke. "We stop."
Lachlan’s gaze snapped to her. "Here?"
She nodded once, as if the answer had been obvious from the moment the first engine noise appeared. "They’ll keep coming until they see bodies. They need a lesson."
Psycho’s grin widened. "Finally."
Zubair tracked the terrain ahead. A shallow depression ran between two low hills, just deep enough to break sightlines and force the vehicles into a funnel if they followed. Sparse scrub and broken stone scattered the ground, not cover, but clutter.
Not a perfect kill zone.
A clean one.
Sera guided the car off the rough track and into the depression, braking only when the front tires hit softer dirt. The vehicle settled at an angle that gave them a view back up the slope without exposing the whole body of the car.
Luci jumped out before the engine fully died, circling once and then fixing his attention uphill. The wolf’s body went still in a way that meant he’d already chosen where he would strike if someone got too close.
Hattie stepped out like she was leaving a party early.
Aerenyx didn’t hurry. He simply appeared at Sera’s side when she opened the door, posture loose, eyes on the rise behind them. He looked calm in a way Zubair didn’t trust.
Not because Aerenyx was careless.
Because Aerenyx was decided.
Zubair moved automatically, pulling Sera a half-step back with a touch at her elbow. She didn’t resist, didn’t question it, just let him position her behind the car’s frame where a stray shot wouldn’t have a clean line.
His creature approved. Behind cover. Behind you. Where she belongs.
Sera’s gaze slid to him, amused. "Protective."
"Practical," he corrected.
Her mouth twitched. "Sure. Let’s go with that."
Lachlan took the left side of the depression, feet planted, lightning contained in his forearms like a coiled line. Psycho took the right, shoulders loose, frost beginning to creep along his boots without permission. Aerenyx stayed center with Sera and Zubair, not hiding, not presenting himself, simply waiting.
Hattie wandered a few paces upslope and sat on a flat rock like she wanted a better view. "Don’t mind me," she called out. "I’m just watching the show."
Luci remained below her, body angled to intercept anything that got past the first line.
The trucks drew closer.
Engines growled at the top of the rise, then slowed. Tires crunched over gravel and hard dirt. The first vehicle nosed forward, hesitated, then descended into the funnel.
They were close enough now that Zubair could see faces through windshields.
Sunburned. Dust-streaked. Squinting. Their clothes looked more like scavenger gear than uniform, but their weapons were clean. Real rifles. Real magazines. Their posture carried the confidence of men who had spent the last few days killing things that didn’t shoot back with tactics.
Return patrol, Zubair thought.
The kind Bishop would throw at a problem because he didn’t want to waste his own security teams.
Psycho’s voice dropped into something pleased. "They brought snacks."
Sera’s eyes stayed on the first truck. "They think they’re rescuing something."
Zubair watched the driver lift a hand, signaling the other vehicles to halt at the crest. The lead truck rolled another few meters down and stopped just short of the depression’s bottom. A man in the passenger seat raised binoculars, scanning.
He spotted them.
Zubair saw it in the way the man stiffened, then the sharp movement as he shouted something back into the cab.
A door opened.
Boots hit the ground.
The lead soldier stepped out with his rifle in his hands and his helmet clipped to his belt like he wanted to be seen as a person, not a faceless guard. His eyes locked on Sera first, then flicked to the others.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t speak politely.
"Drop your weapons," he called. "Hands where I can see them."
Psycho laughed.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t theatrical. It was a short, sharp sound, like the man had told a joke without knowing it.
The soldier’s gaze snapped to him, tightening. "I said—"
Sera stepped forward into clearer view, moving just enough that her silhouette was unmistakable. She didn’t raise her hands. She didn’t comply.
She smiled.
"No," she replied.
The soldier stared, as if he hadn’t understood the word. He lifted his rifle a fraction higher. "You’re coming back with us."
Sera’s smile didn’t change. "Nope. You got that one wrong, too."
Zubair felt the urge to burn rise in him, hot and impatient. Not because the soldier was a threat. Because the soldier was talking like he had the right to give orders to something he couldn’t even comprehend.
His creature pushed. Let me. Let me rip him open. Let me feed her with his fear.
Zubair kept his heat contained. He didn’t need to show it yet. He didn’t need to waste it.
He shifted his stance and called back in a flat voice. "Go home."
The soldier’s gaze slid to him. His eyes narrowed, assessing the posture, the calm, the placement. He didn’t like what he saw.
"Bishop wants you," the soldier said, trying a different angle. "You’re... assets. You belong to Hope Sanctuary. You cannot leave."