[1] Apocalypse: Third Rebirth

Chapter 179: Rat

It took them hours, searching through every nook and cranny in the building to realize two things; this place was a lot bigger than they originally thought and, second, they needed to have better security measures put in place so that this never happened again.

Chen Zi Han rushed up the stairs once he and Liu Wei had determined that there were no squatters in any of the unregistered apartments. Well, that wasn't strictly accurate. They had found the place where the spirit user had been holed up in, but they weren't there anymore.

That meant that the rat had moved to another place and it would be harder to find them.

He was worried about Princess. He couldn't feel anything coming from his connection one way or another, but every time he tried to talk to her, there was nothing. He knew that she had volunteered herself as bait, and that alone was enough to cause him stress. Add to the fact he couldn't talk to her and he was ready and willing to commit murder.

"She will be fine," said Liu Wei in a relaxed tone. But even though he sounded relaxed, his pace was no less than Chen Zi Han.

"There is no doubt she will be fine," agreed Chen Zi Han as he vaulted around the corner and up another flight of stairs. It was agreed that, although they now had power, they were not going to use it on useless things, like elevators. But 13 flights of stairs were a lot when you were in a hurry. "But she shouldn't have to be going through it by herself," he added as he burst through the fire door on the penthouse floor. He saw Wang Chao and Liu Yu Zeng on the other side, the worry in them mirrored their own.

The two men shook their heads at Chen Zi Han's silent question. They hadn't found the rat either. It would be hard to sleep knowing that there was a hostile spirit user somewhere in the building. The two groups got to the door at the same time and Liu Yu Zeng turned the knob to open it.

There was a thud and then the door wouldn't open any farther. In fact, the door opened so little that they couldn't even see a crack through the frame to give them some clue about what was going on on the other side.

The men looked at each other for a second and then Liu Yu Zeng grabbed the handle and threw his shoulder into the door, forcing it open only the tiniest bit more. Still not enough to see what they were up against. Getting angry, Liu Yu Zeng let go of the handle and stepped back a few feet, the other men giving him room.

Lifting up his right foot, Liu Yu Zeng kicked the door hard just beside the door handle. The heavy door shook, but didn't do anything else. "Wait, is that a bullet hole?" ask Liu Wei as his brother backed up to try and kick in the door again.

The men froze and looked down to where Liu Wei was pointing. There, about three feet from the ground, was a perfectly round hole. They turned their heads to the other side of the hall and saw where the bullet had been lodged into the wall behind them.

Liu Wei crouched down and tried to see through the hole and into the penthouse itself. He could see through it, and it didn't look like anything was wedged up against the door preventing it from opening, so why couldn't they get in?

Sticking his finger through the hole, he felt a sticky wetness. "Blood," he confirmed once he brought his finger back. Rubbing the liquid between his index finger and thumb, he felt the consistency. "Not fresh, but not old enough to gel," he analyzed. He was trying to keep a cool head. If something had happened to Sweetheart then one of the other guys would have let him know. But still, being trapped on the other side of the door from her was not where he wanted to be.

Liu Yu Zeng waited for his brother to stand back up before he continued to ram his shoulder into the door. A boot wouldn't help as the doorknob was not the problem and if he kicked anywhere else on the door (like the center) his foot would go through, but nothing else.

After hitting it enough times that he was sure his shoulder would bruise, Liu Yu Zeng motioned for Chen Zi Han to take over. Between the efforts of the two of them, they might have been able to move the door an inch, but that was it.

"I don't know if I should commend you on the security of your door or bitch about it," grumbled Liu Yu Zeng as he went to go stand beside Wang Chao.

"Seeing as we are on the wrong side of it, I would say bitch," remarked the other man, his eyes never leaving the door.

Chen Zi Han was just gearing up to ram into the door again when the heard something sliding and then a soft thud.

Chen Zi Han and Liu Yu Zeng reached for their guns and brought them up, ready for whatever greeted them. Slowly the door opened and Li Dai Lu's face could be seen.

Seeing that it was them, she fully opened the door and stepped aside.

"Sorry about that," she said with a shrug as she continued to dry her wet hair. "There was a dead body in the way." She gestured over to the right side of the door where there were clear drag marks leading to a body folded in half. "The guy was heavy."

Liu Wei walked over to Li Dai Lu and gently took the towel from her hair. Seeing the bruising on her neck, but deciding not to mention it that second, he brought her over to her chair and proceeded to continue to dry her hair.

Since Liu Wei had Li Dai Lu well in hand, Chen Zi Han walked over to where the body was slumped in half and pulled him up by the hair so that they could see his face. Although there was a bullet hole in between the eyes, it was not so big as for his features to be obscured. "He looks familiar," he said as Wang Chao and Liu Yu Zeng walked over to join him. The two men crouched down to get a better look at his face.

"Yeah, but where?" asked Liu Yu Zeng confused. "Is he one of yours?" he asked, turning to look at Wang Chao. Wang Chao scrunched his forehead as he tried to remember that face.

"No," he said, "He is the one we locked in the cage of the serial killer house," he continued, referring to the house where they had found all the girls in the cages.

"Didn't Princess kill him?" asked Chen Zi Han confused.

"Twins," called Li Dai Lu from where she sat across the living room.

"And exactly what were you thinking, little girl?" asked Wang Chao, his voice going deep with his displeasure. He could see the bruising on her neck from all the way over here and he was not impressed.

"To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence," she said as Liu Wei finished drying her hair.

"Excuse me?" asked Liu Yu Zeng as he went over to sit beside her. "Want to try it again?"

"It's a quote from one of my favorite philosophers... if there is such a thing," she said with a shrug. "In essence, people are going to do the easiest, stupidest thing to get out of something."

"Explain," said Wang Chao as he too, took his seat, his eyes never leaving her neck.

"To anyone, I would be the weakest link out of the five of us," she said as she lifted her arms and let Chen Zi Han wrap her blanket around her. "So, if he wanted revenge, he would come looking for me."

"And only show up when we weren't around," continued Liu Yu Zeng as he looked back and forth between Chen Zi Han and Wang Chao. "Did you know she was going to do this?"

"I had a suspicion, but nothing concrete," admitted Chen Zi Han as the three men turned their attention to Wang Chao.

The other man looked at them with a black stare. "She should have been fine," he said, turning his attention back to the fact that clearly she was not fine. Not with those fingerprints around her neck.

Li Dai Lu simply shrugged her shoulders. "Anyways, the rat has been caught and killed. Now we can move on to the next issue at hand."

"You mean your neck?" asked Liu Wei from where he stood beside her. He wanted nothing more than to rub the marks off of her neck, to make sure that no other man left an imprint on her, but he couldn't. If he did, he would only hurt her more.

"Like the zombie tide that is going to hit City Y in just over two weeks."