Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



My tongue scrapped against the stubble that was starting to grow on Wang Chao's face. It was not enough to be able to easily see, but it was definitely there.  I only again heard him chuckle as I quickly returned my tongue to my mouth, my face bright red.

"Does someone want to tell me what is going on?" asked Liu Yu Zeng as he stared between me and Wang Chao.  My face turned an even brighter shade of red, if that was possible, as I looked up at the other three men staring down at me.

"I can only assume that this has something to do with Zhao Jia Li and her idea that 'if you lick it, it's yours'," said Liu Wei as he stared intently down at me. He was just as used to me as Wang Chao was after spending so much time together. To the point that even though he couldn't read my mind, he could certainly guess with a 90% accuracy rate.

"Does that mean we are all going to get licked?" asked Liu Yu Zeng, a devilish smirk on his face.

"Does that mean we can lick back?" added Chen Zi Han.  Once again wishing that the ground could swallow me up, and once again, glad that it couldn't, I buried my face in Wang Chao's chest as it was the one in front of me.

"Yes," replied Wang Chao, giving them both of their answers at the same time.

"You guys are not going anywhere," barked Zhou Gang Jia as he marched back over to our small group. Luckily he was away looking after Zhao Jia Li during the whole licking incident or I might have died from embarrassment. As it was, I was pretty grateful for his interruption.

Wang Chao turned around, effectively placing me behind him as he spoke to the irritated man.  "What now?" he demanded.

"Captain Zhao Jia Li has decided that you and Liu Wei are to be part of her team of bodyguards," said the Rear Admiral as if Zhao Jia Li was the one making all the decisions on base now. Truth be told, I was not surprised that this was her first demand.

"No," replied Liu Wei as if the very idea that they, the princes of City A and City H, would be willing to be lowly bodyguards for that woman.

"I'm afraid that you don't have a choice in the matter," replied Zhou Gang Jia as he straightened to his full height. I'm sure that it would have been very impressive if he was not attempting to out-alpha my men. As it was, he just came across looking like an idiot.

Wang Chao raised an eyebrow, looking down at the man. "Do you really think that?" he asked looking at the man seriously. "Do you really think that you can do whatever you want, command us however you want? Is that what you think?"

Uh oh, I am pretty sure that this was Wang Chao getting upset. And I could happily say that in the past two months, I had never seen the man that cranky.

The Rear Admiral snapped his fingers and a bunch of men with guns ran into the room decked out in full combat gear including bulletproof vests and helmets that obscured their features. 

"Is this really the step that you want to take?" asked Liu Wei as he looked at the men that were currently surrounding us.

"No," admitted Zhou Gang Jia, "But Captain Zhao has made a few threats of her own, and between the two…" He drifted off as if it was clear whose side he was going to be on.

"Have you ever seen the effects of a poison user on a human?" asked Liu Yu Zeng as he let his dark mist engulf his hands. "I haven't," he continued like any response from the Rear Admiral was inconsequential.  "But it might be fun to try."

'You should have killed her,' hissed the voice inside of me as I looked around at all the threats to my men. There were over 200 soldiers inside of the training hall, not to mention the new ones with the guns. I scoffed at the idea. 'Too late now,' I said not committing one way or another.

'Find her flame,' hinted the voice, glee injected into every word.

'Only zombies have flames,' I countered, still keeping my eyes on the threat. I could call my purple flame and have them killed before they could pose a threat to my men. But I didn't know if they would be hurt in the process.

'You know nothing,' hissed the voice, this time going back into my darkness without me pushing it away.  Curious about what it said, I put it on the back burner until we got out of this.

Zhou Gang Jia scoffed at Liu Yu Zeng's threat.  "You won't kill us," he said with a confidence I didn't feel. "You risk hurting yourself."I think you should take a look at

"Is that what you think?" Liu Yu Zeng challenged, tilting his head to the side. "I think I could kill everyone here and the five of us will come out just fine. Want to make a bet?"

'Extinguish the flames,' came the voice from the darkness. This time, instead of the hiss that it normally was, it sounded more like a young woman.

'How?' I demanded as I heard the sound of the safeties being released from the guns around us. Silence was the only answer I got. Leave it to my inner self to be just as bitchy as the rest of me. I rolled my eyes and with a wave of my hand, the guns trained on the boys disappeared before a single bullet could be shot.

"I seem to have a lot of your guns," I said as if it was an afterthought. "How many more can you sacrifice?"

"This doesn't have to be like this," growled Zhou Gang Jia as he looked at the men surrounding us and their distinct lack of guns.

"Should I make the men disappear next?" I asked. I mean, I didn't want them in my space, but I was pretty sure that I could find a place to store them if necessary.

"Why could you not just do what you are told?!" asked the man as he looked at Wang Chao like we were being the ridiculous ones.

Chen Zi Han snorted from where he stood behind me, his arms crossed against his chest. "And why do we have to be subjugated to the whims of that woman?"

Zhou Gang Jia simply rolled his eyes. "This has nothing to do with you three, you can leave whenever you want to," he said dismissing us. "And you all seem just fine being subjugated to the whims of that woman," he added as he gestured to me. Yeah, because I was the one demanding bodyguards.

The growls coming up from the men around me though put me at ease. "You wouldn't even have a healer if it weren't for her," Liu Wei pointed out.

"And now we do," replied Zhou Gang Jia as if it didn't matter now that the results were out. I simply nodded my head.

"Okay," I said, stepping out from behind Wang Chao. I was done with this conversation. "You let us all go, and we don't kill you. How does that sound?" I asked, part of me bluffing while the other part was sure that we could easily take out all these people.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, was why I always emptied my place before I left it. The boys might not have noticed anything, but I had made sure that everything was back in its place before they managed to figure it out. Essentially, there was nothing to pack and even if we left this minute, the base would not profit off of my supplies.

"You couldn't," repeated Zhou Gang Jia, sounding like a broken record.

'Extinguish the flames,' came the woman's voice again from deep inside me. 'Embrace the darkness and extinguish the flames.'

"Want to bet?" I asked, repeating the same sentence that Liu Yu Zeng said a few minutes ago. "Are you even willing to bet on the lives of everyone under your command?" I stressed, looking the man in the eyes. I let my gaze go unfocused for a moment, trying to see the same flame that I had noticed in the zombies.

"Bitch," jeered the Rear Admiral, causing me to focus on him rather than what I was doing. I felt the men coming to attention behind me, but I simply smiled. I was more than willing to wear the title of bitch if it meant that I was not capitulating to the man in front of me.

Because let's face it, the only time a woman was a bitch was when she was being strong and not giving in.

"Yes, I am," I said. "But that doesn't change anything."

"You already have two other men, is losing two that big of a deal?" he sneered trying to make me embarrassed that I had four men. Unfortunately for him, both me and my inner bitch were in agreement that yes, losing two would be a huge deal.

"I don't know, you have over 200, is losing all of them a big deal?" I replied. I would not back down on this issue. There was no way in Hell that Wang Chao and Liu Wei would become bodyguards for some healer that thought she could control anyone and anything that she wanted.