Alia didn’t know where she was going. All she wanted was to get away.

She knew this was a bad idea. Charging through a city full of flesh seeking zombies with just a small pistol was plain dumb, but for some reason she didn’t care.

Everything that happened, going from her parents to all the deaths she witnessed on the way to missing all the shots to being pushed down by a zombie to being splattered with zombie blood to being lashed out by Jean, was much more than what she could handle. Her mind was empty. She just kept on running and running, refusing to acknowledge what happened.

Suddenly, Alia found herself in the middle of an abandoned street. The cold wind calmed the fire in her mind. When the emotions were gone, she immediately realized how stupid she was, especially when she saw a mountain of undead at the next corner.

“S**t!” Left with no time to wonder why she was so irrational, Alia cursed and took out her firearm with a shaking hand. The zombies heard her as well as they ran at her.

Alia fired at the zombies, but the recoil of the weapon, even though it was smaller than that of a rifle, was still too much for a normal non-xel’naga girl to handle. Not every girl was called Jean Turner. Almost all the bullets missed. Alia’s eyes widened slightly when she saw a couple bursts of blood on the first few zombies, but her hope died when the zombies kept on moving.

Alia gulped as the zombies got even closer. She dropped the rifle back in the alley in her wave of anger, and now her only weapon left was just deemed useless. Luckily, she remembered the firearm wasn’t her only weapon.

Returning her pistol into her belt, she tried to channel her inner mutant power. At first nothing happened, but when the zombies got closer, Alia suddenly felt a surge of fear from her heart. As if a switch was turned on, a wall of flame formed between Alia and the zombies.

She didn’t even need to move the wall because the zombies, without their pain sensation or fear of heat, continued to move toward the closest source of flesh even if it meant walking through the flame. As if they were lambs volunteeringly walking into the slaughterhouse, the zombies offered themselves to the wall of destruction.

The smell of barbecue, the second time in less than an hour, made Alia sick, but she was glad to see none of the zombies made it past the wall.

When her power ran out twenty seconds later, all that was left of the zombies was a pile of black remains.

Now safe, Alia took a deep breath and sat down on the ground. She was wondering why her brother was’t here already. Knowing him, there was no way he would leave her for that blonde bitch. She merely had a ten second or so head start. He should be here a while ago.

The sound of engines roaring brought her back to reality. She looked at the street and was more than excited to see it was a small military convey. Three SUVs with camouflage painting stopped in front of her. Men in military uniforms walked down with their weapons ready.

A zombie attracted by the motor sound made a move. One of the soldiers raised his weapon and fired a single round, and the zombie collapsed with a splatter of blood in its head. Alia felt some excitement. These men were professionals, and more importantly, they were soldiers. Soldiers tend to protect civilians.

One of the soldiers walked to Alia. The girl put on a sweet smile and relaxed.

“Did you do that?” The soldier asked with a meaningful look in his eyes. If it was her brother here his hand would be on his holster and his eyes would be looking for a mean of escape, but Alia, as inexperienced and naive as she was, failed to see it.

“Yes.” She exclaimed proudly.

“Good.” The soldier nodded at someone behind Alia. A frown barely took place on Alia’s face before she felt an electrical pain on her neck. She lost consciousness before she could do something resembling resistance.

The soldier tapped his comm. “Sir, we have located another mutant. Delivering her to base now.”

The soldiers retreated to their SUVs and departed. Unknown to them, behind another corner, a young man stood in horror.

Jean was alone in the alleyway.

She saw potential in this Paul. He was clever and decisive. A few hours ago he was still a normal teenager. Now he could melee a zombie. Unlike his less intelligent sister, he was fully aware of the situation. His weapon never left his side, and Jean felt his alert eyes on her. It couldn’t really achieve anything, but Jean nonetheless appreciated the effort. Everything he did showed how intelligent he was.

His cleverness was only one of the reasons Jean desired him so much. There were a lot of clever people in this world, but someone both clever and controllable was rarer. The man’s got a heart, judging from how he took care of his sister. Even though he had no real need to protect her and she had been nothing but trouble, he nonetheless did what most people would consider stupid.

This was a good thing. As a heartless person herself, Jean was fully aware of the danger of a clever person that was willing to do anything to reach his/her goal. If Paul was even half as cold as lurkers were, he would be dead already. She had no intention of giving him all the trust and power just so he could betray her and use the resources against her. Jean enjoyed betraying others, but the same couldn’t be said of being betrayed.

Jean spent quite the effort to make Paul her underling. First, she needed him to owe her and thank her with all his heart. The best way to do that was save the person who he cared about the most. Otherwise why in the world would a teenage girl run into a city full of zombies all by herself? Alia was stupid, but she wasn’t that stupid. To make her vulnerable, Jean gave a slight push.

A few psychic tricks were more than enough to make the ordinary human being forget about the consequences of her actions.

The military convoy was slightly unexpected, but Jean let it go when she realized the girl was of no real danger. Even better, the soldiers were an enemy Paul couldn’t defeat by himself. As clever as he was, he would seek help from the only person who could and would save Alia.

Jean’s eyes snapped open when she saw the young man stumbling down the alley.

“I need your help…”