Olivia looked back at Liam, her eyes wide with panic. "Liam... just who the hell are these people?"
Before Liam could even open his mouth to answer, her purse started buzzing like crazy.
She dug her phone out fast, stared at the screen for half a second, then hurled it away from her like it had burned her hand.
Liam lunged and caught it mid-air out of pure reflex.
The screen was lit up with weird pop-ups, random code scrolling, and right in the middle, a map with a fat red dot right on top of their location.
It was GPS. Live. Soone was tracking them in real ti.
Liam’s stomach dropped. "Shit. We’re exposed. We can’t stay here."
He smashed the phone against the nearest concrete edge until the screen cracked and went black.
Then stomped on it a couple more tis for good asure. Olivia didn’t argue, she just nodded, pale.
They ran.
Liam’s legs were already screaming by the ti they reached the old broken bridge on the east side.
He half-dragged, half-guided her underneath the cracked support beams where the shadows were thickest.
They dropped down behind a rusted pillar. His thighs and calves burned like soone had poured hot oil on them.
He leaned back against the cold concrete, sucking in air.
Liam turned to look at her. She was hugging her knees, breathing hard, staring at nothing.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Why was your phone doing... that?"
She didn’t answer right away. Just kept staring at the ground.
Liam rembered sothing from the chase, one of the guys tailing them had a patch on his shoulder.
A skull wrapped in a scythe. It looked too deliberate to be random gang ink.
He pulled his own phone out. "Fine. If you don’t want to talk, I’ll figure it out myself."
He typed "skull circled by scythe symbol" into the search bar. A few results down he found it.
ATLAS Security Solutions.
Private military-looking company. High-end contracts. Lots of "discreet services" buzzwords on their public page.
Liam turned the screen toward her. "You know this company? ATLAS?"
Her shoulders jerked like he’d slapped her. When she finally looked up at him, tears were already shining in her eyes.
She swallowed hard. "Since you almost died back there for ... I can’t keep lying to you."
She told him everything.
ATLAS was her father’s company. On paper it was high-end security, bodyguards, asset protection, cyber defense. But underneath?
Human trafficking. Moving product, drugs, people, whatever paid best. She grew up seeing it, hating every second.
One day she couldn’t take it anymore. She ran. Changed her na, took shitty low-paying jobs, waitressing, cleaning, anything honest.
It wasn’t glamorous, but at least her hands felt clean.
Then her father died. A new guy, Zalor, took over. She thought that was finally the end of it. No more connection. No more danger.
Except Zalor apparently decided loose ends were too risky. Especially one that knew too much.
Liam gripped his phone so hard the case creaked. "Then we can’t go back into Lumina. Not now. Not ever, probably."
She looked at him, eyes red. "What are you saying?"
"Only one real choice left." He t her gaze. "We go outside the safe zone."
Her face went white. "That’s suicide. The wilderness is crawling with monsters. You’ve seen the reports."
"Better than walking straight into ATLAS guns. And out there, "
Liam jerked his thumb toward the dark horizon, ", we can scavenge food from abandoned shops, malls, whatever’s left.
We can train. Get stronger. Then we co back and deal with Zalor."
She stared at him for a long second, then wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.
A tiny, broken laugh escaped her. "You’re insane. Even now you’re trying to find the bright side."
He gave her a small smile. "For the people I care about? So drug-lord wannabe isn’t gonna scare off."
"He’ll see you as a threat now," she said quietly. "He’ll send more. A lot more."
"Good thing they can’t track us anymore," Liam pointed out. "Silver lining."
She looked around the dark underside of the bridge, then back at him. "So... where do we even go?"
"Only way out is through Wall Rose. Wilderness starts right on the other side."
Liam stood up and offered her his hand. She took it.
They moved fast along the edge of the city until they reached the last barrier, Wall Rose.
Massive. Gray. Patched in a hundred places. He crouched low near the base.
"This is it," he whispered. "Last wall between us and everything out there."
Olivia swallowed hard and nodded.
They crept along the base until Liam spotted it, a jagged hole in the concrete, edges stained with old red-brown sars.
Blood. Not fresh, but definitely not encouraging.
He glanced at her. She looked sick, but she stepped closer anyway.
They squeezed through.
On the other side the world changed. Overgrown weeds choked what used to be a road.
Cracked asphalt peeked through here and there like old bones. Trees leaned over everything.
Liam took Olivia’s hand again and they started walking down the center of the ruined road.
Their shoulders brushed every few steps. After a while she leaned her head lightly against his arm.
"This is the first ti," she said softly, "soone’s been willing to throw everything away for ."
He smiled even though she couldn’t see it.
"You’ve helped plenty of tis.
You saved my life more than once and you don’t even realize it. You’re part of my life now."
She gave his shoulder a light smack. "You can’t take those words back, you know."
"Wouldn’t dream of it."
They kept walking in comfortable quiet for maybe ten minutes.
Then a roar rolled through the trees, deep, animal, angry. The ground shivered under their feet.
Liam grabbed Olivia and pulled her close on instinct. "Stay quiet."
They crept forward, following the sound.
Around a bend they saw it.
A werewolf-looking thing, standing on two legs, fur matted, muscles bunched.
It was circling a girl sprawled on the ground. Short tight skirt, thick thighs out in the open, loose shirt barely holding her chest.
Tattoo crawling across one side of her face.
Behind her lay three bodies. Her party, he guessed. Dead. Torn up.
Liam shook his head. "She’s done for."
Olivia tugged his sleeve hard. "Look at her dagger."
He squinted. The blade glinted, high-end, custom grip, faint blue energy shimr along the edge.
Way too expensive for soone who looked like a newbie.
Liam frowned. Then he noticed the wounds on the dead bodies again. Clean cuts. No claw marks. Too precise for a monster.
The girl spotted them. Her eyes lit up. "Please! Help ! I’ll give you everything, loot, gear, anything!"
"Fuck," Liam muttered. "She just painted a target on us."
The werewolf’s head snapped toward him. Yellow eyes locked.
No running now, if they bolted it would chase them deeper into the woods and probably drag every other monster in a five-mile radius right to them.
He sighed. "No choice."
Liam started walking forward.
Right then his vision flashed.
[Notification]
Host has passed 100 days with SP never reaching zero.
New skill acquired.
[Appraisal: Rarity: S ]
Active.
Host can view enemy levels when level difference is ≤50.
He blinked. "Well... I’m not saying no to free stuff."
He activated it on the werewolf.
[Werewolf – Level 3]
Overall stats: E
Beast-kin. High agility. Low intelligence. Usually found in packs.
High agility. No way they could outrun it.
Liam’s brain raced. Olivia was behind him now, trusting him completely. If he screwed this up, they both died.
He rembered the thick roots snaking across the old road earlier. So were still wrapped around trees here.
Idea.
"Olivia!" he called back without turning. "Go to that dense cluster of trees over there.
Grab a root, tie it tight between two trunks. Keep it low. Trip height."
Her eyes widened as she understood. She bolted.
Liam raised his sword and took a breath. Buy ti. Just buy ti.
The werewolf lunged.
He threw himself sideways. Claws grazed his shoulder, hot sting, blood instantly soaking his shirt. Shallow, but it hurt like hell.
He kept moving, dodging, staying just out of reach. Kept its attention glued to him.
Then it raged. Eyes went pure red. It charged full speed.
No more dancing.
"Olivia! Done?!"
She wiped sweat off her forehead. "Yes!"
Liam sprinted straight toward her spot. The root trap was there, taut, low, perfect.
He slid under it on his knees.
The werewolf didn’t even try to jump. It hit the root at full speed, tripped, flipped forward, head slamming down.
Exposed neck.
He drove his sword straight through the back of its skull.
It twitched once and went still.
Liam stood on its back, breathing hard, wiping sweat and a little blood off his face.
For one second he let his shoulders drop.
Then Olivia scread, "Move!"
He dove sideways.
A dagger flashed exactly where his heart had been a mont earlier.
The girl they just saved was on her feet now, glaring, lips twisted in frustration.
"Damn it," she hissed. "I almost had your heart clean."
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