Once Bitten

The Price Of Freedom (45)

It felt stupid to follow a cat, the animal quick on its feet and rushing ahead where it would wait impatiently for Wukong and Macaque to catch up, tail flicking in annoyance. 

Which wasn't really fair considering Wukong had human legs and couldn't jump as far as the cat, nor did he have as much stamina so he returned the impatient look with his own glare every time he paused to catch his breath and kept moving. 

Just when he thought he was going to lose his mind and demand a break before his knees gave out on him the cat finally stopped, sitting on one of the window stills of a house with its tail lashing anxiously. 

It made Wukong's nerves alight too, on the wrong side of the road and glad the cat wasn't making any noise anymore. If this was where the others were, he didn't want zombies attracted to the sound of the cat's earlier meowing. 

He hoped they'd just gotten tired and spent the night in this innocuous-looking house, comfy in beds and then just slept in or something because at least that way they'd be safe. Don't get him wrong, Wukong was going to be furious with MK for making him worry and then pull him into a hug so long the boy complained but at least he'd be okay. 

Before he could contemplate getting down Macaque grabbed his arm, and he looked back, eyes wide and startled at Macaque's serious expression. 

"Something doesn't feel right." His old friend said, and Wukong knew Macaque's instincts were usually right but just this once he hoped they were wrong. 

"Let's just hope we're not wandering into a trap." He muttered, thinking of the last time Wukong and Macaque had gone into a building looking for MK and hoping this situation was nothing like that. At least the kid had friends with him this time. He tried to think of a reason Sandy's cat would be alone, distressed, and looking for them, but he couldn't think of any ideas that weren't awful to think about. 

He wondered if MK had gotten more sick, and then before he could worry about that longer than a second a muffled but loud scream made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, heart leaping in his chest. 

"Did you hear that too?" Macaque asked behind him but Wukong was already scaling down the building, racing towards the house the cat, Mo, was on as another long, pained scream from the house rang out through the empty street.  

With the key, unlocking his cuff was easy, movements as quiet as possible as he pulled the thing off him and sighed in relief, rubbing his raw wrists from where it had dug in. He wasted no time standing up which might have been a mistake because the moment he stood he was overcome with vertigo and immediately found himself stumbling back to his knees, groaning at the lightheaded feeling while his vision swam. 

Shit. This was not the time! He figured it must have been the fever mixed with the stress of everything happening, his face hot and flushed while his body trembled with chills. It was horrible, and he swallowed the icky feeling and forced himself to slowly get back up again once he could see. 

He didn't have time for this. He needed to get out. 

His legs trembled less as he made his way up the stairs, each one annoyingly high as he rode through the nausea in his throat, hardly daring to breathe for fear of making too much noise. Each step felt painfully slow but he had to be quiet because he knew how loud the old steps were and-

The door at the top creaked open, the sound making him snap his head up from where he'd been watching his steps carefully, and there at the top stood Jīng, her eyes cool and terrifying in the dim yellow lighting. 

"You thought you could fool me, huh sweetie?" The endearing term didn't sound very endearing when she said it like that. Instead, it sounded like a threat and MK froze, his heart thundering like a rabbit as his fight-or-flight reflexes kicked in.