Apocalyptic Rebirth: With a repairman system space, she rises again.-Chapter 529: The brief chase.

Vicente was furious. He looked like he wanted to burn the whole building down. "Find her!" he roared at his men. "Bring me her head! No_ bring me all of her, I want her alive!"

Sunshine instructed part of her group to join the search. She then gave a sharp nod to Hunter. "Use the radar. Find that woman now." She wanted her more than Vicente did. If he didn’t kill her, she would drag the woman back to Westbrook and make her face the same kind of justice Fifi did.

"Where is Leah when you need her?" Nimo muttered, racing out with the others to continue the search for missing children and the escaped leader of the cannibal cabal.

After the teams left, Vicente turned his icy gaze toward Luca, the leader of the Hilly Grove residents. Nothing happened in this area without his knowledge. Luca was pale, it was hard to tell if he was innocent or in on it with Mrs. Krotchner. He had been her biggest and most vocal defender after all.

"Did you know?" Vicente asked, stepping into Luca’s personal space. "Did you know she was butchering children in my territory and feeding them to my people?"

"I had no idea!" Luca stammered, holding up his hands. "I am the leader of the elite residents, not an inspector! How was I supposed to know? You are the leader of the town; you have more eyes around than I do. If you failed to know, as a superhuman, how was I supposed to know as an ordinary human with just two eyes?"

Sunshine stepped up, her eyes burning with rage. "Oh, shut up, Luca. You’re telling me that in the middle of an apocalypse, where most people are eating canned dirt, you didn’t wonder where a steady supply of fresh, ’premium’ meat was coming from? The deep freezer is full of it!"

"She told us her family slaughtered most of their livestock and preserved it in a secret bunker in the town. For other different tasting kind of meats, she said it came from the hunters in the slums! It was supposed to be mutated animal meat." Luca argued, pointing a finger back at Vicente. "And don’t act so holy, Vicente! You’ve eaten here a dozen times. You said the ribs were ’to die for’ last Tuesday!"

Vicente’s eyes went wide. He doubled over and vomited right next to Luca’s expensive shoes. "Shut up," he wheezed as he stood up. "When we find her, I am going to put her on a grill myself. I’ll make her feel exactly what those kids felt. I am going to fry that bitch for making us....." he growled, looked up to the skies and screamed.

His people looked pale. They were wondering how much of the meat Mrs. Krotchner had given out for free was actually human. Come to think of it, some children had gone missing within their own town. Everyone had blamed it on the mist, bandits, mutated beasts, disease or the apocalypse. The thought that someone was cooking them had not crossed anyone’s mind.

Suddenly, Hunter’s voice chirped inside Sunshine’s mind. "Target identified. Brown pickup truck. Speeding toward the slums. She’s moving fast."

"Found her," Sunshine said, her voice turning cold and professional. She didn’t wait for a reply. She turned and ran for the exit, her heavy boots thudding against the marble floor. "Let’s move out! She’s heading for the slums!" She told the rest of the squad.

"Finally," Poncho muttered, checking his weapon. "A target I don’t feel bad about hitting."

The chase was a blur of roaring engines and flying dust. Vicente led the way, barking directions over the radio that Sunshine had given him like a madman. He knew every shortcut and back-alley gap in Ferry Island. "Take the gap behind the former Green vine winery!" he shouted. "We’ll cut her off at the dry creek!"

A strange, competition started to break out. Vicente’s guards were pushing their engines to the limit, trying to show they were the masters of their own backyard. But they stood no chance, one of their vehicles caught fire because of the engine overheating. Even when it came to speed, they were being outperformed. Meanwhile Sunshine’s modified vehicles, built with tech from other worlds, hummed with power. They glided over the rough terrain as if the gravity didn’t apply to them and the heat had nothing on them.

"Look at those losers," Siegfried laughed over the comms, watching a Renzo’s jeep bounce violently over a pothole. "They’re going to lose their mufflers before they even see her taillights."

"She is ours." Poncho declared.

Father Nicodemus took the shortest of all shortcuts_ the sky. He surged upward, his form a dark streak against the sun, and landed directly in the middle of the road in front of the escaping brown truck.

Mrs. Krotchner’s eyes went wide. She screamed, yanking the steering wheel to the side to avoid hitting the man who had just dropped from the clouds. But it was a trap.

"Good going father." Sunshine said. With a flick of her wrist, a massive wall of ice materialized right in the truck’s new path.

The people that had been walking along the road and minding their own business dove out of the way. Those who lived nearby rushed into their houses and sealed their doors. The ones with access to windows peeked outside and the brave; they came out to watch.

"How did she make ice in this heat?" Stefano asked, "Our crypto kinetics are struggling to make even a single flake in this heat."

No one answered, everyone’s attention was on the brown truck. Its tires hit the ice with a sickening crunch. The truck flipped, rolling twice before landing on its side in a cloud of dust.

The hunt was over.

Dozens of vehicles screeched to a halt. Everyone stepped out, their boots crunching on the dry, cracked ground. They watched as Mrs. Krotchner crawled out of the shattered windshield. Her elegant apron was torn, and blood oozed from a nasty cut on her forehead. She looked like a trapped rat, whimpering and shaking.

Vicente didn’t wait. He marched over, his face a mask of pure fury. "You bitch!" he roared. He closed the gap in two steps and landed a heavy punch right across her jaw. Two of her teeth flew out, bouncing off the dirt like white pebbles.

"Please! Have mercy!" she wailed, clutching her face. "I’ll give you gold! I’ll give you anything!"

"Mercy?" Vicente spat, his voice trembling. "Did you show mercy to the children? Did they taste like chicken to you? How could you feed on human meat?"

"I never ate them!" Mrs Krotchner shouted.

"But you made others eat." Sunshine strongly accused.

Vicente gagged as he turned to his men, his eyes glowing with a dark intent. "Get the portable furnace. Heat it up. We’re going to see how well she cooks."

Mrs. Krotchner’s face went pale with a different kind of terror. "Wait! It wasn’t just me!" she screamed, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I wasn’t the only buyer! I know the others! I can give you names, addresses_ everything! Just please, don’t kill me!"