"Drop the guns," the scavenger leader repeated.
He took a step forward, his heavy boots crunching in the purple ash. He pulled off his gas mask, revealing a face covered in radiation scars and frostbite. He grinned, exposing rotten, yellow teeth. "We saw the light show, billionaire. We know you’re hiding high-grade military tech up there. So, here’s the deal. You open the gates, and maybe we let you and your guards live."
Catrin didn’t lower her pistol. She stood perfectly still, the freezing wind whipping her dark braid over her shoulder. Her mind was calculating the odds at lightning speed.
Thirty men. They were spread out in a semi-circle, blocking the only path back to the Ark. Jax had his shotgun raised, and Quinn had her sniper, but they couldn’t take out thirty targets before getting sprayed with assault rifle fire. Catrin had military-grade explosives sitting inside her spatial dimension, but she couldn’t summon them without exposing her biggest secret to her own commanders.
She was boxed in.
"If you shoot us, my men on the wall will gun every single one of you down before you make it ten feet," Catrin bluffed, her voice dripping with absolute, freezing confidence.
The scarred leader laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound. "Nice try, sweetheart. But the fog is too thick. Your wall turrets can’t see us. And my jammer means your radio is dead weight. You’re entirely alone."
He raised his hand, signaling his men. The clicking of thirty assault rifles being taken off safety echoed through the freezing air.
"Grab the woman," the leader ordered. "Kill the other two."
Jax stepped fully in front of Catrin, raising his shotgun to his shoulder. "I’ll see you in hell first!"
Before Jax could pull the trigger, a sickening, wet CRUNCH echoed from the back of the scavenger group.
Everyone froze.
The scavenger leader frowned, peering into the thick purple fog behind his men. "Marcus? What was that?"
There was no answer. Only the howling wind.
Then, another sound. A heavy, breathless thud.
One of the scavengers in the back row suddenly flew out of the fog. He didn’t just fall; he was thrown. His body sailed through the air and slammed violently into the frozen trunk of a pine tree. He hit the ground like a sack of broken bones, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
Panic rippled through the scavenger crew. They immediately spun around, aiming their rifles blindly into the swirling purple snow.
"What is that?!" one of the men yelled, his voice cracking with terror. "Is it a mutant?!"
"Hold your fire!" the leader barked. "Show yourself!"
A dark figure stepped out of the fog.
Catrin’s breath caught in her throat.
It wasn’t a mutant. It was a man.
He was incredibly tall, wearing a torn, blood-stained dark civilian coat. His chest was heaving as he gasped for air, visibly exhausted. His pale silver hair whipped wildly around his striking, aristocratic face. He looked battered, bleeding from his side and left arm, but his posture was completely rigid.
And his eyes. Even from twenty feet away, Catrin could see the burning, predatory gold of his irises cutting through the dark.
"Who the hell are you?" the scavenger leader demanded, aiming his rifle directly at the stranger’s chest.
Zeviel didn’t answer. He didn’t look at the leader. His golden eyes flicked past the thirty armed men, zeroing in entirely on Catrin.
When he saw her, alive, breathing, and standing defiantly in the snow, a massive, terrifying wave of relief washed over him. But when he saw the guns pointed at her, that relief instantly turned into absolute, murderous rage.
"You," Zeviel whispered, his deep voice carrying over the wind. "Drop your weapons."
The scavengers burst into laughter.
"Are you kidding me?" the leader sneered. "It’s one guy! Look at him, he’s already bleeding to death! Light him up!"
Three scavengers opened fire.
Zeviel moved.
To Catrin, it looked like a blur. Zeviel didn’t dive for cover. He lunged forward with unnatural, terrifying speed.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
A bullet grazed Zeviel’s shoulder. Blood sprayed from his jacket. His human vessel screamed in agony, the shock of the physical trauma nearly dropping him to his knees. He gritted his teeth, forcing the pain down. Ten percent is enough, he told himself.
He closed the distance in a fraction of a second. He grabbed the barrel of the first scavenger’s rifle and squeezed. The thick steel crumpled like tin foil under his grip. Before the man could even scream, Zeviel drove his palm up into the scavenger’s chin, shattering his jaw and sending him flying backward.
"Shoot him!" the leader screamed, backing away in sheer terror.
"Jax, Quinn, now!" Catrin ordered, snapping out of her shock.
Jax roared, racking his shotgun. BOOM. Two scavengers on the left flank dropped. Quinn dropped to one knee, her sniper rifle cracking loudly as she took out the men holding the signal jammer.
The clearing erupted into total chaos.
Zeviel was a force of brutal, efficient violence. He couldn’t vaporize them, so he dismantled them. A scavenger rushed him with a combat knife. Zeviel didn’t even look. He threw his hand out.
An invisible pulse of telekinetic force slammed into the man’s chest, throwing him twenty feet into the air.
Another scavenger aimed a shotgun directly at Zeviel’s back. Zeviel spun around, his golden eyes flaring. The heavy shotgun jerked out of the man’s hands as if pulled by an invisible string, smashing violently into his own face.
But Zeviel’s human body was failing. Every time he used his minor telekinesis, his nose bled. His vision swam. He was taking hits. A stray bullet caught him in the thigh, making him stumble. A scavenger managed to slash a knife across his ribs before Zeviel snapped his wrist.
He was bleeding human blood, but he refused to stop. He fought like a rabid animal defending its den.
"Fall back! Fall back!" the scavenger leader screamed, realizing his crew was being slaughtered by three guards and one impossible, silver-haired demon.
The surviving scavengers didn’t need to be told twice. They dropped their heavy weapons and sprinted blindly into the thick purple fog, abandoning their leader.
The scarred leader tried to run, but Jax was faster. The massive Commander tackled the man into the snow, pressing the hot barrel of his shotgun directly against the back of his head.
"Move, and your head becomes a canoe," Jax snarled.
The clearing went dead silent, save for the howling wind and the heavy, ragged breathing of the survivors.
Fifteen bodies littered the bloody snow.
Zeviel stood in the center of the carnage. He was completely wrecked. His coat was shredded. He was bleeding from a bullet graze on his shoulder, a stab wound on his ribs, and the hound bite on his arm. He fell to one knee, coughing violently. He pressed a hand to his bleeding thigh, his silver hair falling over his face.
"Jax, secure the prisoner," Catrin ordered, her voice remarkably steady. "Quinn, watch the tree line."
Catrin kept her pistol raised. She slowly walked forward, her boots crunching in the ash. She didn’t know who this man was, but she knew what she had seen. He had crushed a steel rifle barrel with his bare hand. He had thrown a man twenty feet without touching him.
He was just like Nico.
"Don’t move," Catrin commanded, stopping ten feet away from him. She aimed her gun directly at his chest. "Keep your hands where I can see them."
Zeviel stopped coughing. He took a slow, agonizing breath, fighting the crushing weight of his human limitations.
He didn’t care about the gun pointed at his heart. He didn’t care about the bleeding. He had finally made it.
Slowly, Zeviel raised his head.
The wind blew the purple fog away for a brief, fleeting second. The dim morning light fell across his face.
Catrin’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Then, she really looked at him.
She looked past the pale silver hair. She looked past the glowing, terrifying golden eyes. She looked at the sharp, aristocratic jawline. She looked at the shape of his nose. She looked at the arrogant, yet impossibly soft curve of his lips.
Catrin’s entire world stopped spinning.
The pistol in her hand suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. The breath vanished from her lungs. A deafening ringing filled her ears, drowning out the howling wind of the apocalypse entirely.
It was impossible. It had been four years. The world had literally ended.
But she would never forget that face. It was the face she saw every single time she looked at her son.
"You..." Catrin whispered, her voice cracking, her pistol shaking violently in her grip.
Zeviel looked up at her, a tired, bloodstained smile breaking across his face.
"Hello, Green Eyes," Zeviel rasped.