The second those words left the darkness, every zombie in the basement stopped moving.

Every head, human and zombie, slowly turned toward me almost in unison while low growls started rumbling through the underground room like starving dogs finally spotting fresh meat.

If I didn’t know just how awesome I was, I might have almost felt embarrassed with all the attention... but let’s face it... I deserved it.

The problem was that the thing in the hole clearly thought all this attention meant ownership, and that was where our opinions were going to part ways.

I had tolerated a lot today.

I had tolerated zombie rats, questionable convenience store hotdogs, Chenghai’s life choices, Zhenlan’s "the rewards are worth the risk" nonsense, and an entire hotel that smelled like wet death and bad management.

What I was not going to tolerate was some basement-dwelling worm with a voice like clogged plumbing calling me his like I was a snack on a silver platter.

The zombies that were stationed around the hole started moving at the same time.

They didn’t run, they didn’t attack, they just moved toward me with the same eerie purpose they had shown since the beginning. Their ruined mouths hung open while black saliva dripped onto the concrete floor, their eyes glazed over with a white film.

A few civilians immediately scrambled backward, dragging children and injured people with them until they hit the far wall and had nowhere left to go.

The soldiers around Commander Li shifted too. They knew they were tired, I knew they were tired, the zombies knew they were tired. But that didn’t change the fact that they wanted to protect the people around them.

Yuche moved first.

He stepped closer to my right side while strips of rusted metal started peeling off the broken pipes behind us and wrapped themselves around his hands and arms.

Several soldiers immediately looked over when the pieces started forming their own sort of armor, protecting him as best they could, but Yuche didn’t even seem to notice. At this point, I was pretty sure he would accidentally weaponize an entire building before remembering normal people couldn’t do that.

Lingyun moved up on my left with that smile I was sure he got right before committing felonies while flames flickered lazily across his fingers. Honestly, the fact he wasn’t already setting things on fire probably counted as personal growth.

On a side note, Chenghai had grabbed the pipe beside the wall while Zhenlan shifted a little farther back, the very air around him moving lightly between people and threats.

The best part was that, for once, none of them were arguing with me.

Ah... Progress. Beautiful, beautiful progress.

Commander Li moved before any of them could step fully in front of me.

He put himself between me and the nearest zombies with no hesitation at all, his body half-turned like he was still tracking the hole and the infected at the same time. "No," he said.

The say he said that word was like he expected it to be obeyed without thought, but it really was too bad that zombies didn’t have very many thoughts in their head.

And they definitely didn’t listen to him.

The closest zombie didn’t stop. It kept dragging its feet over the wet floor, arms slowly lifting toward him like it meant to push him aside and collect what it had been told to collect.

Only Commander Li didn’t move. "I’ll take her place," he continued, his voice still steady. "But you aren’t touching her. Not as long as I live."

For a brief second, I forgot how irritated I was.

Not completely. I was still me after all, I could multitask, but something in my chest went strangely still.

People didn’t do that anymore.

Not really.

I mean, sure, I saw it happen in a movie once, where the heroine was willing to sacrifice herself for her little sister, but that didn’t apply here.

First, Commander Li was not the heroine of this story. And second, I was not his sister.

What was worse was that I was pretty sure that his offer didn’t come with strings or fear or some kind of expectation hanging behind it.

Sure, people protected what belonged to them, what benefited them, what they could use later, but even kindness had become a transaction after the world ended.

It was a mouth to feed, a favor to collect, a debt to hold over someone when things got worse.

But Li hadn’t looked at me like a debt, he hadn’t even looked back to see what I thought about it.

He just stepped in front of me.

Like it was obvious.

Like there was no other choice.

Well.

That was highly inconvenient.

Lingyun’s smile disappeared for half a second as he stared at the back of Commander Li’s head before it came back, slower this time, with a different edge to it.

He wasn’t jealous, not exactly. Lingyun didn’t have the same kind of possessive stillness as Yuche, and he didn’t have Chenghai’s blunt territorial instinct. His violence was brighter than that. Warmer. More cheerful.

But the look in his eyes said he had just decided Commander Li might be allowed to continue breathing.

For now.

Yuche noticed too. Of course he did. His expression didn’t change, but I felt the way he shifted closer to me, metal hovering around him in silent judgment.

"Commander," Colonel Wei snapped from several feet away, sounding like his blood pressure was about to climb out of his skull and file a complaint. "What the hell do you think you’re doing?"

"Saving someone who once saved me," Li answered without looking at him.

"And you are willing to sacrifice yourself? Your men? For a woman who couldn’t be bothered to get off her couch to help humanity?"

"It’s not even a question."

Wei stared at him like Li had decided to juggle live grenades for fun.

I could relate, that man was clearly unwell if he thought I was worth more than him.

The voice inside the hole breathed again, wet and slow, and the zombies closest to Li twitched like puppets with their strings pulled too hard.

The thing didn’t answer immediately. Maybe it was thinking. Maybe it was eating. Maybe it only had two brain cells and both of them were busy trying to form another sentence.

"Not you," it finally dragged out, each word scraping through the basement like meat over broken glass. "Her."

"Wow," I said, unable to help myself. "Not even a polite rejection. That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?"

Commander Li’s shoulders stiffened slightly, but he still didn’t move aside.

The zombies started forward again.

Lingyun stepped in before the first one could touch Li and caught the corpse by the throat with one hand. Fire crawled across his fingers, not spreading, not flaring, just burning deep enough that the zombie’s skin blackened under his grip.

"You will not touch her," he said, his voice and eyes completely devoid of emotions. The zombie snapped its teeth at him, but Lingyun’s smile just widened. "She isn’t the only big bad in this room. Why don’t you try me on for size?"

The thing inside the hole breathed harder.

"Not you. She is mine," it said.

The words were clearer this time, and somehow that made them worse. They didn’t sound smarter. They sounded hungrier. Like whatever lived in that darkness had tasted the idea of me and decided it liked the flavor.

"And I want her now."

The basement went still and beside me, Lingyun’s fire brightened until the zombie in his hand had completely turned to ash on the wind.

And I looked into the black hole, smiling slowly.

"You want me?" I purred, stepping around Commander Li and the rest of the men that were trying to stop me. "By all means. Let’s see this voice in the darkness, shall we?"