Zubair saw Rene Lapierre before Rene saw them.
The man who was the face of Hope Sanctuary was waiting for them the mont they walked out of the underground labs and into the sun. He was walking fast and was flaked by two guards on each side of him.
They guards weren’t anything to talk about... their shirts were hanging out of their pants, half tucked in, they were missing buttons on their shirts, and they had a blank look on their face like they couldn’t process what exactly was going on.
In contrast, Rene looked the sa way he did when Zubair first t him, on his second day in Hope Sanctuary. He looked like he was still a police officer... or so sort of paramilitary organization. He wore black combat boot, black cargo pants, a tight, long sleeved black shirt that showed off an awful lot of muscles that weren’t used all that much.
He appeared to be pissed, but at the sa ti, he seed confused that Zubair and the others weren’t falling in line from a simple glare. Clearly, this man was used to being listened to. Too bad he t Sera.
And she didn’t listen to anyone.
Half a step behind him was Bishop, the head of security at Hope Sanctuary. Whatever he was before the world ended, it wasn’t military. He might have the walk down, his hands loose at his sides as he scanned for angles... but there was sothing about him that seed... different.
Angel, grumbled his creature inside of him. The second man is an angel... fitting since most of the n at your side are demons. There is one angel... but since he is the Angel of Death, I don’t know if he counts. Either way. The angel is trying to figure out where to hide the bodies. Get Sera out of here now.
Zubair’s heat curled low under his skin, contained on purpose. It didn’t want to be contained.
Instead, it wanted to burn the walkway down to bare tal.
Not because Bishop was an angel (whatever that ant) or because Rene was a threat.
But it was because Rene was the kind of human who didn’t understand that he had stopped mattering.
If he ever had.
Sera stood a few feet ahead of Zubair with a slight smile on her face. She wasn’t blocking the path. She wasn’t guarding it. She was simply there, still, and her gaze drifting past the chaos with the calm of soone who had already finished what she ca here to do.
Aerenyx stayed behind her, close but not touching. Lachlan was to her left. Psycho to her right, leaning back against a support beam as if he had all the ti in the world and nothing in it worth respecting. Hattie was off to the side, watching like this was a show she’d paid to attend.
Luci paced a short loop, nose down, then stopped at Sera’s side again, attention fixed outward.
Zubair tried not to look at Sera’s feet.
He looked anyway.
Bare.
Blood on her toes. Not hers. Most of it not hers. The floor had been wet enough to paint her skin without effort.
Why are you standing here, his creature continued like Zubair was the stupidest person in the world. His disdain was like pressure in his bones. She’s barefoot. She’s cold. She needs food. She needs clothing. You’re wasting ti looking at a human who doesn’t matter.
Zubair’s jaw tightened. He forced his attention up and outward again.
Rene reached the end of the path and stopped hard when he saw them. His eyes flicked over the bodies filling the doorway behind them, piled up over the broken doors, over the blood sared along the walls and doors where soone had tried to crawl out and failed.
Then his gaze snapped to Sera and stuck there, not because he knew what she was, but because even humans could sense gravity when it stood in front of them.
"What the hell did you do?" Rene demanded.
There was no preamble, no lecture, no attempt to sound reasonable. His voice carried, sharp enough to cut through the distant screams and the constant coughing that ca from deeper in the facility.
Bishop didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. He just watched, eyes narrowing when they landed on Hattie. Zubair saw the recognition there. He also saw the hatred. Whatever was going on between the two of them, it was deeply personal.
Hattie smiled like she’d been waiting for soone to say sothing entertaining.
Rene stepped closer, boots scraping grit and broken glass. "You destroyed the lab levels. You destroyed containnt. Do you understand what you’ve done?"
Sera didn’t react, she simply tilted her head to the side and let the man continue to talk.
Instead, it was Zubair who spoke up, because Sera wouldn’t know these n and wouldn’t care to learn them.
"They were never yours," Zubair said.
Rene’s gaze snapped to him. "Who the hell are you to—"
Bishop’s eyes shifted, locking onto Zubair’s face, then down his posture, then back up. He was reading him. Forr military read forr military faster than they read civilians.
"You," Bishop said slowly, like testing the word. "You were one of the ones who ca in with her."
Zubair didn’t answer.
She’s barefoot. The pressure returned imdiately. Look at her hands. Look at her skin. She’s been in a lab and you’re talking to n who would put her back in it if they could. Kill them. Or do you need to show you how to do it properly?
Zubair kept his heat inside. Contained. Controlled.
He looked at Sera again.
She wasn’t shivering. She wouldn’t. That wasn’t her since she didn’t feel the cold. But that didn’t an he wasn’t cold for her.
And still... she was still barefoot.
That mattered.
Rene took another step. He tried to position himself so that he was in front of Sera, so she would have to look at him if she wanted to leave. Zubair watched the move and felt sothing in him go sharp.
Humans did that. They stepped into space they hadn’t earned and assud it would hold.
Sera’s gaze shifted to Rene at last, lazy and unreadable.
"What are you?" Rene asked, and the question ca out wrong. Not curiosity. Accusation. Like she was a problem he expected soone else to solve.
Sera stared at him for a beat, then looked past him again.
Rene’s mouth tightened. "No. You’re going to answer . You destroyed what we built down there. You destroyed the only thing we had that could keep people alive."
Hattie made a small sound of interest. Not disagreent. Just amusent.
Sera finally spoke, voice flat. "Why would I keep your people alive?"
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