Lingyun turned his head slightly at Colonel Wei’s statement about making sane decisions, and Wei immediately pointed at him. "Do not start with me, firebug. I am evacuating civilians and pretending not to notice the bodies you left behind because I do not currently have the time."

Lingyun smiled. "Would you look at that? That sounds like personal growth. Good for you. Maybe keep looking the other way so that I don’t find a good reason to set you on fire... or I guess a bad reason would work just as well."

"Look," started Wei Guang, his voice finally crack just a bit with the stress of everything that had been going on. "Believe it or not, I am on your side. I am trying to do some triage. Your... girl... isn’t the only one who matters."

"See," purred Lingyun, taking a step toward Wei with the flames around his hands turning almost blue. "That is where we disagree. My girl is the only one who matters. Or maybe you would prefer being eaten by whatever it was that she fought? I could arrange that if you wanted."

"Enough," Chenghai snapped, stepping in between the two men. It wasn’t the smartest place for him to be, but they had more important things to worry about at the moment.

To his surprise, both men stopped, and turned to look at him. "What side of the line are you on?" asked Lingyun, a bright smile on his face almost matched the madness in his eyes.

"The one that keeps all of us breathing," Chenghai replied. "Especially Rouxi."

Lingyun nodded his head, stepped back and went to stand beside Yuche again, scanning the room for threats like he had never stopped. "Then let’s get to it," he said after a moment, raising his eyebrow in challenge. "I’m waiting to be saved."

"Li, take whoever you need and get the civilians clear," Chenghai sighed, taking control again. "Wei, keep the stairs moving and send any working vehicles to the front entrance. We find our SUV, we leave."

Wei’s face twisted at being ordered by a man he still half-treated like a dishonorably discharged subordinate, but the ceiling cracked loudly overhead before he could argue. Dust spilled down across the holding room, and several civilians screamed as the lights flickered.

"Move!" Wei roared.

The next several minutes became nothing but bodies, orders, and movement. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Chenghai cleared debris from the base of the stairwell while Zhenlan used controlled bursts of air to push dust away from the civilians choking near the first landing.

Wei’s soldiers carried the worst of the injured while Li’s personal team stayed close to Rouxi and her men while Luo Xin kept one hand near Rouxi’s wrist without touching her, watching her breathing every time the group paused.

And even throughout the chaos, Yuche carried her through all of it without shifting his grip.

A young soldier stumbled too close when someone shoved him from behind and the vines snapped outward before Chenghai could speak. This was the exact thing that he was worried would happen back at the military camp.

Someone was going to die because they didn’t pay attention to the predator in the room.

Luckily for the soldier, Yuche turned just enough to shield Rouxi’s body from impact, and Lingyun’s fire flashed once near the soldier’s face before disappearing.

The soldier went pale.

"Walk somewhere else," Lingyun suggested with a bright smile, and nobody needed to be told twice. Not with that warning in his voice.

By the time they reached the ground floor lobby, the hotel was looking nothing like the pristine building they had walked into the night before.

Glass from the upper windows cracked and fell in glittering sheets across the entrance hall. The chandelier above the main lobby hung at an angle, swinging slightly with each tremor. Smoke drifted through the far corridor from a fire no one had time to put out.

But still, Chenghai did not stop. "Front doors," he ordered. "No one goes back."

A civilian screamed that her husband was still downstairs, but Wei grabbed her before she could turn around. "Then he is dead. Everyone with a pulse was brought up here. Keep moving."

It was a harsh thing to say, but it wasn’t like he was wrong, either.

The moment he got through the front doors, Chenghai paused for a second. The night air hit like cold water, but it didn’t chill him... it was exactly what he needed to wash away everything that had happened in the past 24 hours.

But the chaos didn’t stop simply because they were out of the building. On the street in front of them, civilians scattered in every direction while soldiers tried to force them toward the wider intersection away from the hotel facade.

Several military vehicles sat crookedly along the curb. Most were damaged, but some of them were still in working order. Smoke rose from farther down the street, and abandoned cars choked half the road.

Chenghai found the SUV almost immediately.

It sat farther down the block where they had left it, dirty, dented, but still intact... still filled with supplies.

For the first time since leaving the chamber, something in his chest loosened.

"Keys?" he snapped, but Zhenlan was already moving.

"Inside," grunted Yuche, his steps getting longer as he rushed Rouxi toward the safety of the vehicle.

Of course they were. Why wouldn’t they be still inside the car? With the doors unlocked? With all their supplies in it?

As if he could hear the sarcasm in his thoughts, Yuche looked over his shoulder at Chenghai. "Or did you forget that we were trying to escape before the zombies caught us?"

Right.

That whole thing.

Yuche turned back around and carried Rouxi straight toward the rear passenger side without waiting for anyone’s permission. Lingyun stayed beside him, close enough that when a civilian stumbled toward them crying for help, fire appeared in his palm before the man got within five feet.

The civilian stopped.

"Not us," Lingyun said softly.

The man backed away, his hands raised in surrender.

Chenghai watched it happen and said nothing. He understood the message clearly enough... the line in the sand didn’t move for anyone.

He looked at Rouxi as Yuche carefully settled her into the SUV without letting the vines catch on the doorframe. She remained unconscious, her face turned slightly against Yuche’s chest, one hand hanging limp until the smallest vine curled around her fingers and pulled them closer to her body.

This girl should not exist.

In Chenghai’s first timeline, she had been dead before the apocalypse. A spoiled princess buried long before she learned how to fight.

But this Rouxi?

She was no spoiled princess.

She had built a territory, gathered supplies, controlled monsters, and crawled out of a fight that should have ended with her body disappearing underground.

And, truthfully, Chenghai did not know what to do with that yet.

So he did what he understood.

He shut the SUV door carefully, turned toward the street, and started counting vehicles, soldiers, exits, and threats.

Thinking could wait.

Getting her home could not