Reborn as the Zombie King

Chapter 11: Rescue

Vanessa stared at what used to be Liam vacant eyes, standing silent among the ranks of the infected now while her parents dropped straight into a kowtow at Chase's feet.

"Chase, please. Our family owes you so much. We treated you like our own son when you and Wanwan were together."

"Please, Chase. We've known each other for years. There has to be something left of that."

Vanessa watched her parents grovel and finally snapped back into herself. Death was standing right in front of her, and if she didn't find a way out of this in the next few minutes, that was exactly what was waiting for her.

"Chase, I swear I'll never think twice about anything ever again. Whatever you say, whatever you want, I'll do it."

She peeled off her torn, filthy coat, desperate not to let something as trivial as ruined clothes get in the way of reminding him what he'd once wanted so badly. She struck a pose, hoping the shape of her body still counted for something between them.

Chase let out a cold huff of a laugh. "Anything I ask?"

Vanessa lit up, stepping closer, nodding eagerly, her whole expression shifting into something soft and coy. "Anything, Chase. I've missed you so much."

Chase tossed a dagger down at her feet. "Kill them both."

Her parents went pale as death. They threw themselves back into their kowtow with such force that blood started welling at their foreheads.

"Chase sweetheart you can't mean that. I know you lost your own parents, but I've always thought of myself as half a mother to you"

"Chase, our daughter can't survive without her parents. We'll be your in-laws from here on, we'll treat you right, we swear"

Chase almost laughed out loud at that. He remembered exactly how "half a mother" this woman had been every visit to their house scored and graded, every gift that wasn't as expensive as the last one met with cold silence and pointed remarks. He'd swallowed every insult because that was apparently what love cost. And now, faced with dying, they wanted credit for years of contempt.

"You two don't get to claim any of that. Vanessa pick it up, or you both die together, right here."

Vanessa swallowed hard, bent down, and picked up the dagger.

"Wanwan WHAT are you doing?! Have you lost your mind?!"

"Wanwan, sweetheart, think about this how do you live with yourself after this?"

"You've got water powers, don't you? Use them! Fight back, don't just"

Her parents' knees seemed frozen to the floor, gravity still pinning them in place, and their expressions cracked from fury into raw terror as their daughter closed the distance.

"Mom. Dad. Don't take this personally." Vanessa's voice had gone eerily calm. "We barely have enough supplies as it is. Your powers are worthless. You've already had your whole lives. I'm still young give me my shot."

She drove the blade into her father's chest before the sentence had even fully left her mouth. He fought back weakly, but a few more stabs and he stopped moving entirely.

Her mother stared, uncomprehending, at the daughter she'd raised the sheer, casual efficiency of it breaking something behind her eyes.

"Wanwan you're insane. You'd really do this to your own MOTHER"

Vanessa had heard that exact tone her whole life — the sharp, controlling edge that had shaped every choice she'd ever made, that had taught her from childhood that her only real value lay in what she could be traded for.

"Rest easy, Mom. I'll burn something nice for you every year, I promise."

Her mother's last expression was pure disbelief, eyes wide, mouth open on a scream that never finished as the blade came down again and again, Vanessa's face twisted into something feral.

The dagger clattered to the floor.

Vanessa turned back to Chase, forcing that same sick, hopeful smile onto her face. "Chase. It can be just like before now. Nobody's stopping us anymore."

Chase watched all of it happen with the calm, distant interest of a man watching a play he already knew the ending to. He'd rehearsed this exact scene in his head every single day since the moment they'd thrown him over that wall.

And now I finally get to watch it happen for real.

"Please be okay, man. It's been days and nothing." Miles Carter stared down at his phone, jaw tight.

He wasn't panicking, exactly not yet. Chase kept a stocked house and knew how to survive on his own. But right before the outbreak, Chase had mentioned bringing Vanessa's entire family in with him, and that detail hadn't sat right with Miles from the start.

Idiot's in love. Head's not on straight.

Miles had tried to talk him out of it at the time, gently, the way you do with a friend who won't hear a word against his girlfriend. Chase doted on Vanessa without question, blind to things that were obvious to literally everyone else in his life.

Miles had clocked exactly what she was the very first time they met attached to Chase the moment his parents died and left him the estate, gossiping constantly, juggling a reputation Miles had heard about secondhand more than once. She'd even messaged Miles from a burner account before, sending him carefully-angled photos, testing whether he'd bite.

He'd never told Chase any of it. Chase was too far gone on her to hear it without cutting Miles out of his life entirely, and losing that friendship over a warning Chase wasn't ready to hear wasn't a trade Miles was willing to make.

"Chase. What did you awaken? Talk to me."

Miles had gotten a genuinely powerful ability out of the Blood Moon himself, and his first instinct had been to share it, compare notes, figure things out together. Instead: radio silence, days running long past what felt normal.

Something's wrong. Please just be alive.

Cautiously, deliberately, Miles made his way toward the New York Ability Response Base the official organization stood up in the aftermath of the Blood Moon, gathering together anyone who'd awakened something worth using.

Getting in required an ability screening first. Weak or "useless" powers got turned away outright, and this early into the collapse, with supplies still holding out for most people, almost nobody wanted to risk the trip out just to get rejected at the door.

"You're asking me to risk a whole team for one civilian?" The base commander studied Miles with open skepticism.

"Then I don't join. That's the deal. Help him, or I walk."

"That a threat?"

"It's a condition. You can't exactly force my cooperation either way."

Director Grant studied the set of Miles's jaw for a long moment and sighed, clearly recognizing a losing argument when she saw one.

"If he's already dead by the time you get there, your team turns around immediately. No exceptions."

Miles nodded.

"Quinn." Grant turned toward a tall man near the door. "Second team's yours. Escort Carter, retrieve his friend. If the target isn't recoverable, confirm the area's clear and return."

"Chief, who exactly is this guy? What's his ability?" Wesley Quinn asked, eyeing Miles.

"Run the mission. Skip the questions."

"Copy that."

Wesley led his team and Miles out toward Ridgemont Estates, visibly irritated the entire ride. Zoe Sinclair, riding shotgun in the back, studied Miles with open curiosity.

"So who are you, exactly? The boss doesn't just greenlight a civilian rescue for anybody. Your power must be something."

Miles's actual ability was, in fact, considerable just entirely useless in a fight, which was exactly why he'd had to beg his way into an armed escort instead of handling this himself.

"Zoe. Leave it. Grant said no questions."

Wesley's tone stayed flat, unbothered.

"Ugh, so mysterious." Zoe pulled the lollipop from her mouth and pointed it teasingly at Miles. "Fine, forget the ability talk. You single?"

"Zoe seriously?" Tyler Sun, driving the armored transport, sounded genuinely wounded. "I risked my neck getting you that candy and this is the thanks I get?"

"Aw, don't be jealous, Tyler. I just like it when cute boys play hard to get." Zoe reached toward Miles's face; he leaned out of range on instinct, jaw tight. "Ohh, he's shy AND resistant. Even better."

Miles kept his mouth shut and his opinions internal. The only member of the team who seemed remotely sane was the older man in the back, eyes closed, arms crossed, riding out the whole conversation in total silence.

"Huh. No zombies out here at all." Tyler slowed as they hit the gates of the community. "Is this place just built on good feng shui or something?"

Every prior stretch of road had been an obstacle course of the infected. This one was empty.

"Wait hang on." Tyler's grip on the wheel tightened. "What is that?"

Everyone's eyes followed his gaze into the distance and found it, a dense, unbroken ring of infected, standing in perfect formation around the heart of the community like a wall built out of corpses.