The Mutant King In Apocalypse

Chapter 8

Even when she was in pain watching her father die slowly, she frowned at Rufus's audacity.

Her eyes were red from crying but her face was twisted with the kind of anger that came from desperation. She looked at him like he was the most disgusting thing she had ever seen.

With a grim look and an arrogant gaze, she told him what everyone already knew.

"There is no cure," she said, her voice sharp and cold. "Everyone knows that. Even the best doctors in the city have not been able to come up with one. The best doctors that work for the government, they have been trying for three years. Three whole years and nothing."

She stepped closer, her eyes burning with disdain.

"So what makes you think you can even do anything? You must be a mad man."

"It is not madness," he said quietly. "We conducted research in an underground lab, a small team working on ways to stop the virus before it reaches the brain. That is how I know it can still be done."

Tina scoffed almost instantly.

The sound came out sharp and bitter, like she had heard the same lie a thousand times before.

"Research?" she repeated, her voice dripping with mockery. "Do you have any idea who you are talking to?"

She straightened up to her full height, her chin raised like she was looking down at something beneath her feet.

"I am an heiress," she added, stating her powers with the kind of confidence that came from a lifetime of having doors opened for her. "My family funds most of the medical research in this city. If anyone found a cure, I would be amongst the first to hear it first."

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him.

"We are not even second, we come first. Before the ministers, before the government, before anyone else who thinks they matter in this world."

She took another step toward him.

"So quit your lies and leave that instant," she said, her voice getting colder with every word. "I am fed up hearing a mad man speak. My father is dying and you are standing here wasting my time with fairy tales."

Her hand moved to the knife on her belt.

"You should only remain if you have a death wish."

Seeing that his help offered was not needed, Rufus turned to leave.

He had survived betrayal and a mutant attack today. He was not going to force help on someone who looked at him like he was diseased.

Besides, his instincts were just drawing him towards the survivors to help and nothing more

He took one step away from them when suddenly, a cold and shaking hands grabbed him, causing a strange jolt throughout his body.

It was the old man's hands, cold and shaking but surprisingly strong for someone so close to death. His fingers wrapped around Rufus's wrist with desperate force.

His face was desperate and he coughed, black blood sprouting from his mouth.

The blood splattered on the ground between them, dark and thick. Tina's breath caught in her throat as she watched it fall.

The old man waited for the coughing to stop, his chest heaving with the effort of staying conscious.

"Don't take my daughter's words to heart," he said with forced words, each syllable costing him more energy than he had to spare. "She is just worked up by the incident and isn't thinking straight at the moment."

His grip on Rufus's wrist tightened.

"She does not mean half of what she is saying. She has been through too much today."

He paused to breathe, his cloudy eyes moving from Rufus to his daughter and back again.

"We really need your help," he said.

The silence that followed was heavy and thick.

Tina had gone completely still when her father started talking. She stayed frozen, staring at his hand wrapped around the stranger's wrist.

Then something cracked inside her.

"Father!" she screeched, her voice breaking despite everything she was doing to keep it steady. "Don't tell me you fell for his lies and would allow a filth like him to touch you!"

The words came out laced with shock and something that sounded almost like anger.

She looked at her father's desperate face, at the black veins crawling up his neck, at the way his hand shook as it held onto Rufus.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her breathing becoming shallow and quick.

The old man did not let go of Rufus's wrist. He kept his tired eyes on his daughter's face, letting her see everything he could not say out loud.

That he was afraid.

That he knew what was coming if nothing changed.

That he was willing to try anything, even a stranger in a torn wedding suit, if it meant he would not become the thing that would tear his daughter apart.

Tina stared at her father's hand wrapped around Rufus's wrist.

Then she looked at the black lines climbing toward his jaw.

Her lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall.

The arrogance was still there on her face, but underneath it, something had broken completely.

Rufus stood quietly between them, feeling the old man's pulse racing beneath his fingers and the virus crawling through his veins like smoke.

The knowledge in his head told him clearly that they had very little time left.

He met Tina's furious gaze, but there was no mockery in his eyes. Just a calm that did not match the chaos around them.

"I can help him," he said again, his voice steady and sure. "You can call me filth afterwards if you want. But if you walk away now, there will not be a second chance."

Tina's silence screamed louder than all her earlier insults.

Her father's grip on Rufus tightened again, as if his body had already made the decision that his daughter's pride was still fighting.