novelraw Chapter 529: That Was Fast
Chapter 529: That Was Fast
Sera tilted her head as she stared at the man from Hope Sanctuary in front of her.
"Assets," she purred. The word itself amused her.
Aerenyx’s mouth curved slightly, as if the soldier had just signed his own death warrant with vocabulary alone.
The soldier gestured with two fingers, and three more men stepped out of the truck. Another two appeared at the crest behind them, rifles ready, taking higher ground. They were doing the motions of a containment operation.
They were not doing it well.
"Last warning," the soldier said.
Psycho moved.
He didn’t sprint. He didn’t posture. He simply stepped forward and the temperature dropped around him so fast the air cracked. Frost snapped across the ground in thin lines, racing toward the lead truck like something alive.
The soldiers reacted late.
One of them fired.
The shot went wide, cracking into the dirt near Sera’s feet. She didn’t flinch. Zubair’s heat surged anyway, instinct sharper than choice, and the next shot never came because the rifle’s metal warped in the soldier’s hands, hot enough to force him to drop it.
The man screamed, clutching his palms.
Psycho kept walking.
Frost climbed the lead soldier’s boots and locked around his ankles in a single clean snap, pinning him in place. The man tried to yank free, panicking now, breath coming hard.
"You can’t—" he started.
Psycho reached him and tilted his head, studying his face like he was deciding where to cut first.
Then Psycho smiled and the ice climbed higher.
It wasn’t slow. It wasn’t creeping. It flashed up the man’s legs and torso in a hard sheath, freezing cloth and skin together.
The soldier’s eyes went wide as his lungs seized. He tried to inhale and couldn’t pull air through the sudden rigidity in his chest.
Psycho leaned closer, voice soft. "You’re too loud."
Then he drove his hand through the ice at the man’s throat.
It wasn’t a punch. It was a precise rupture. Frozen flesh shattered under the force like ceramic, and blood sprayed in a thick arc across the ice-slick ground.
The soldier’s body collapsed in pieces.
Not gore for gore so much as for efficiency.
The other soldiers finally opened fire.
Shots cracked down into the depression, scattering dirt and stone. Lachlan moved without hesitation, lightning snapping out in a tight line that struck the lead truck’s hood and ran through its engine block. The vehicle died instantly, smoke rising as metal melted and wiring snapped.
Aerenyx didn’t move.
He watched.
He listened.
Then he lifted one hand.
Zubair felt it before he saw it, a subtle shift in the air that didn’t come with heat or cold. Aerenyx’s power wasn’t dramatic. It was invasive.
One of the soldiers at the crest coughed once, hard enough to bend forward. He straightened, trying to keep his rifle up, then coughed again.
Red hit his lips.
He stared at it like it had betrayed him.
His third cough tore something loose inside his chest. Blood splattered down the front of his shirt. His knees hit the ground. He tried to raise his rifle again and couldn’t get his arm to obey.
The man beside him fired another burst blindly, then stopped as his own breath hitched.
Aerenyx’s gaze didn’t shift.
The disease was already inside them.
They’d brought it back on their boots from the Sanctuary. They’d breathed it in when Bishop ordered them out. They’d carried it in their mouths and throats without knowing it.
Now it activated.
Zubair watched two more soldiers collapse in staggered sequence, choking, hands clawing at their own necks. One fell off the crest awkwardly, rolling down the slope and landing near Hattie’s rock with a wet thud.
Hattie leaned over him, fascinated. "Oh. That one’s pretty."
The man tried to crawl away from her.
Hattie stepped on his shoulder lightly, pinning him without effort. She looked down at him, bright-eyed.
"You really should stop moving," she advised, like it was friendly.
The man’s eyes rolled wildly. His mouth opened, trying to beg.
Nothing coherent came out.
Hattie sighed and looked toward Sera. "Do you want this one?"
Sera didn’t look at the man. "No. I’m not hungry after Adam."
Hattie nodded, satisfied by the answer, then crouched and ran a finger down the soldier’s cheek like she was petting a dog. The man froze at the touch, body going rigid with fear.
Luci growled low, stepping closer.
The soldier’s breath hitched again.
Psycho moved through the depression like a blade, cutting between bullets with unnatural calm. Frost followed him, spreading in a widening sheet that turned the ground slick and unstable. A soldier tried to rush him from the side, rifle raised like a club.
Psycho caught the man’s wrist.
There was a crack that wasn’t ice.
Bone.
The soldier screamed.
Psycho twisted once and the man’s arm went the wrong way at the elbow. He didn’t stop there. He drove the soldier down into the frost-covered ground and pressed his face into it until the scream turned wet and then stopped.
Zubair watched Sera through it all.
She stood behind the car’s line, jacket zipped, boots on, expression calm. Her eyes followed the movement of the soldiers like she was watching a predictable problem solve itself. There was no flinch when blood sprayed. No tightening when someone died.
Zubair’s creature stirred again, shifting focus. She’s warm now. She’s covered. That’s better. Now keep them away from her. Keep them from touching her.
A bullet cracked into the car’s frame.
Zubair’s heat snapped outward in a controlled burst, turning the metal red-hot at the impact point. The bullet liquefied on contact, dripping down the panel. The soldier who had fired stared for a fraction too long at what he’d just seen.
Lachlan struck him with lightning.
The hit was clean. The man’s body locked, muscles seizing, and he fell backward down the slope, smoke curling from his chest.
The remaining soldiers tried to regroup.
Two of them dragged themselves behind the disabled truck, shouting into radios that weren’t getting answers. One man aimed down the depression with shaking hands, trying to find Sera between bodies and frost and shadow.
He saw her and his finger tightened around the trigger of his rifle.
Aerenyx finally moved.
He stepped forward, posture unhurried, eyes on the shooter. The soldier fired.
The bullet never reached him.
It hit an invisible threshold and simply... dropped, as if the air had grown too thick to allow motion. It fell to the ground and rolled to a stop near Aerenyx’s boot.
Aerenyx looked down at it, then back up.
The soldier’s face went pale.
Aerenyx smiled.
Then the soldier coughed.
It wasn’t a normal cough. It came from deep, violent, immediate. Blood poured out of his mouth in a thick stream that didn’t match the force of the movement. He dropped the rifle, both hands flying to his throat as if he could hold his insides in place.
Aerenyx walked forward anyway.
He didn’t touch him.
He simply stood close enough that the soldier’s eyes rolled back in panic, and then the man collapsed into the frost, twitching.
Psycho stopped near the lead truck and looked around like he was checking for leftovers. His mouth and chin were smeared with red now, and the smile he wore looked sincere.
"Fifteen," he said, pleased. "Bishop’s generous."
Lachlan’s lightning faded back into his arms, contained again. He glanced toward Sera, then toward the crest, calculating the next wave before it arrived.
Hattie stood up from her rock and dusted her hands like she’d finished a minor task. The soldier she’d pinned no longer moved.
Luci trotted back toward Sera, head low, eyes bright, tail barely twitching.
Zubair stepped closer to Sera, shoulder aligning with hers again. His attention flicked to her face, checking for anything shifted, anything wrong.
Her smile widened when she looked up at him.
"That was fast," she said.
"It wasn’t that hard," he replied.