New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤
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Just after noon, Adrian Voss sat at the table with bandages wrapped around half his body and the exhaustion of a sleepless night heavy behind his eyes.
He lit a cigarette, took a drink of cold beer, and stared at the young woman lying naked on his couch.
Then he sank into a long, deeply unhelpful train of thought.
Last night, while the BSAA and the Tyrant tore into each other, Adrian had still been half-stunned from the explosion.
He had carried the young woman on his back and walked mountain roads until dawn, avoiding the main route and every light he could see, before finally getting her back to his apartment.
Now she lay there with her eyes closed.
She was a little under five-seven, with silver-white hair falling to her waist and a face so finely made it looked carved by hand.
Her skin was pale in an unhealthy way, dirtied by dust and the kind of long confinement that kept a person away from sunlight.
It was hard to believe this was the cargo.
Two security teams.
Two Tyrants.
A convoy meant to move through Loplers under armed guard.
All of that for one young woman.
Adrian had imagined plenty of things inside the tank.
A virus.
A monster.
Some sealed experimental horror that would turn the city into a graveyard if it cracked open.
His list had not included a silver-haired, red-eyed young woman who hit every weak spot he did not know he had.
She was cute.
That was a problem.
Adrian slapped his own face.
‘What the hell are you thinking?
Been single so long your brain broke?’
Their relationship was simple.
He was the local guide for an armed escort job.
She was the employer’s cargo.
That was all.
Except she was still cute.
Adrian swore this was not his fault.
It had to be the old Voss’s memories stirring up trouble inside him.
Yes.
That had to be it.
He forced his eyes away from the couch and decided on a practical order of operations.
First, food.
Then call Agor and have him contact the employer to collect the cargo.
In the kitchen, he put together a quick pan of eggs and rice with the ease of a man who had learned to feed himself.
He plated it, leaned against the counter, and dug in.
No one knew his appetite better than his parents, except Adrian himself.
Halfway through the meal, a chill crawled up his spine.
It felt like being watched by something dangerous.
Adrian knew the feeling now.
His body stopped before his mind finished catching up.
He set the spoon down, raised both hands slowly behind his head, then spun and drew the Glock at the same time.
The silver-haired young woman stood in the kitchen doorway.
She was barefoot.
Adrian’s filthy coat hung over her shoulders.
Her ruby-red eyes were fixed on him.
No.
On the pan beside him.
A few minutes later, Adrian leaned against the wall and watched her clear the entire pan of rice without leaving a single grain.
“How’s the rice?” he asked.
“Good,” she answered coolly, licking oil from her lips.
“You slept.
You ate.
Now tell me your name.”
“Name…” A trace of confusion crossed her expressionless face.
“T-Lilith.
That is what they call me.”
“T-Lilith.” Adrian stared at her.
“That’s a lab code, not a name.”
He looked at her face again, trying and failing to pin down anything useful, then gave up.
“How much do you know about yourself?”
“About myself…” Her confusion returned.
“I stayed in the big white room.
Sometimes I floated in a big glass tank.
There were many people in white clothes.
Miss Kelly and Mr.
Freeman were the kindest to me.
I did not like Mr.
Freeman.
His eyes were strange when he looked at me, and he always said I was the best B.O.W., that I was art, that I would sell for a lot of money.”
She paused.
“I like Miss Kelly the most.
Sometimes Miss Kelly brought me chocolate.”
Another pause.
“It was not as good as your rice.”
Adrian ignored the comment about the rice.
His nerves had tightened.
Freeman was almost certainly the same idiot who had gone over the cliff with the second truck.
And this young woman had just called herself a B.O.W.
Bio Organic Weapon.
In Resident Evil terms, that meant the monsters.
Tyrants, Lickers, Hunters, and every other nightmare cooked up by labs that had long since stopped pretending they served humanity.
The convoy had released Tyrants last night.
Those were B.O.W.s.
And now this young woman was saying she was one too.
Adrian thought of Resident Evil 7.
The Baker family had taken in Eveline out of kindness, not knowing she was an E-Series B.O.W.
The result had destroyed them.
Under normal circumstances, he would have drawn a sharp breath.
Unfortunately, this woman had come out of a sealed tank.
Adrian was too afraid to breathe deeply at all.
What if there were viral particles on her?
The couch was probably done for.
The coat on her shoulders was done for.
The pan might be done for.
The pan hurt most.
“Are you afraid?” she asked suddenly.
“No.”
He kept his face steady.
He wanted to ask what she could do.
He also did not want her to smile and invite him to find out firsthand.
No.
He needed Agor.
Fast.
This woman was a live grenade with silver hair.
If she stayed in his apartment one more night, Loplers might wake up to its own biohazard.
Adrian pulled out his phone and called Agor.
No answer.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
“Why isn’t that bastard picking up?” Adrian frowned.
“Did he pass out under someone else’s sheets?”
He turned toward T-Lilith, who was studying the apartment.
She felt his gaze and looked back.
Their eyes met.
Oh no.
She was too damn cute.
Adrian pressed a hand over his forehead and sighed.
Then he sat down with the hopelessness of a condemned man and ate the remaining half plate of rice.
If he got infected, he got infected.
His life was already a mess.
The moment he noticed something wrong, he could put a round through his own temple and call the matter settled.
The young woman watched him eat, confusion passing through her eyes.
She did not understand why the man looked so annoyed.
With food this good, what was there to be upset about?
She stayed completely still until he finished and dropped the plate and pan into the sink.
Then she reached out and tugged the hem of his shirt.
“What?” Adrian asked.
She raised a hand.
Three fingers emerged from the oversized sleeve.
“I eat three times a day.”
“Huh?”
“I eat three times a day.
Morning, noon, and night.”
“Didn’t we just finish lunch?”
“Then one meal remains.
Night.”
“You’re still hungry?”
“I am full now.
I will be hungry at night.
So I need to eat again.”
What kind of logic was that?
Annoyingly, he could not find a hole in it.
“Dinner can be dinner’s problem.
Once I get hold of my employer, you’re going back.” Adrian pointed toward the bathroom.
“For now, go take a shower.”
He turned on the tap and started washing the dishes.
A moment later, water hissed against tile.
“Aah.”
The sound that came from the bathroom was strange enough to make him pause.
Too cold?
By the time Adrian finished the dishes, she came out again, soaked from head to toe.
Water ran from her hair and down her pale skin.
She picked his dirty coat up from the floor and draped it over herself as if that solved the problem.
It did not.
Adrian dropped onto the couch, pulled his phone out, and tried Agor again.
Still no answer.
T-Lilith sat beside him.
She said nothing.
She only watched.
Adrian began to feel stupid.
If the old Voss were here, he probably would have dragged this situation somewhere obscene by now, or gotten himself torn apart trying.
Adrian, on the other hand, had almost no experience being alone with a beautiful woman in his previous life, and this one was wearing nothing but his coat.
He could not kick her out either.
She was important cargo, a job worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the next stretch of his life depended on the money.
The more he thought about it, the more irritated he became.
He lit another cigarette, then immediately felt the situation grow even stranger.
This looked too much like the aftermath of something that had absolutely not happened.
‘Adrian Voss, what the hell is wrong with you?’
T-Lilith grew bored watching him smoke in silence.
She braced both hands on the couch and rocked lightly back and forth, chanting under her breath.
“Dinner.
Dinner.
Dinner…”
Adrian’s patience snapped.
He stood and pointed at her.
“I’m going out.
You stay here.
Don’t walk around, and don’t touch my things.”
She did not answer.
She only kept rocking.
Whether she had heard him was anyone’s guess.
Adrian clicked his tongue, left the apartment, and locked the door behind him.
It probably meant nothing.
If she truly wanted out, the second floor was not that high, and the window existed.
Still, locking the door made him feel marginally better.
After ten minutes on foot, he reached a bar and pushed inside.
There were not many people drinking in broad daylight.
The bartender, a narrow-faced man with too much nose and not enough courage, was wiping a glass.
Adrian walked straight up, picked up a glass, and tapped it against the counter.
“I’m looking for Agor.”
The bartender glanced up, then went back to polishing the glass.
“Boss isn’t here.”
“Go get Agor.
Now.
Or I’ll twist your head off.”
So much for asking nicely.
Loplers etiquette it was.
Adrian’s voice went cold.
The mess T-Lilith had made of his head settled back into something sharper.
“Hey, you crazy Loplers mutt.” The bartender sounded tough, but the flash of panic in his eyes betrayed him.
“Boss left two days ago.
Hasn’t come back.
Can’t get him on the phone either.
Why would I lie to you?
Ask them if you don’t believe me.”
He nodded toward the daytime drinkers scattered around the bar.
The answer did not satisfy Adrian, but he knew the bartender was not lying.
The man did not have the spine to lie to a bared-teeth Mad Dog.
Which made the problem worse.
If even the bar could not find Agor, then Agor was either busy with something very large or already neck-deep in trouble.
Adrian left the bar with a headache.
Right now, a piece of cargo worth several hundred thousand dollars was hidden in his apartment, and he could not even contact the client.
His frustration sat heavy in his chest as he wandered without a destination.
Then his feet stopped on their own.
He looked up.
A clothing store.
Adrian’s mood got darker.
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Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.