Chapter 303: Tell Me About Their Powers
The first sign that something had gone wrong was the blood all over his men.
Gu Han stood in the center of the cul-de-sac and watched two of his men stagger past the barricade supporting a third between them. The injured man’s boots dragged across the pavement, and dark veins had spread from his swollen hand to the middle of his forearm.
Three more followed several steps behind.
One held a blood-soaked cloth against his face. Another limped badly enough that he needed the broken remains of a stick as a cane, while the last man walked with both hands raised slightly away from his body as though he still couldn’t decide whether anything was broken.
The worst part was that none of them had their weapons.
Chen Bo moved toward them first. "What happened?"
The man with the damaged face tried to answer, but blood and teeth filled his mouth and prevented him from being able to speak clearly.
Gu Han looked at the poisoned leader instead. "Where are the others?"
"This is everyone," the man forced out.
Gu Han’s gaze travelled over the six men again.
They had left the cul-de-sac armed and uninjured less than an hour ago. Now they had returned without their rifles, their radio, or enough dignity to look anyone in the eye.
"Take him inside," Gu Han ordered, pointing toward the poisoned man. "Have the medic look at his arm before the poison spreads any farther."
The man grabbed at Chen Bo’s sleeve before anyone could move him. "It was the plant."
Gu Han frowned. "What plant?"
"The one on her wrist."
That answer created more questions than it solved, but the man’s knees were already giving out. Chen Bo caught him before he hit the ground and signaled for two others to carry him toward the central house.
Gu Han waited until the injured disappeared inside before turning to the five men who remained. "Start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out."
No one answered him immediately and that bothered him more than the blood.
The man using the stick as a cane looked toward the others as though hoping someone else would speak first. When no one did, he swallowed and said, "The five people from the craft store came outside with a cart. We told them about the collection rule."
"And?"
"And the woman refused."
Gu Han remembered the report from the rooftop scouts. Four men and one woman had arrived in a maintained SUV, entered the store without asking permission, and ignored the watchers across the road.
"What did the men say?"
"Nothing."
Gu Han’s eyes narrowed. "Nothing?"
"They waited for her to speak first."
The answer sounded absolutely ridiculous. Four armed men had stood in silence while a woman carrying embroidery thread decided how they would respond to a territorial demand? He had never heard anything like that before.
"Which one was their leader?" Chen Bo asked.
"The woman," replied the man with the cane.
One of the other soldiers shook his head. "The man with the map looked like the leader. Hell, there was even that guy who refused to speak who was holding the basket. He could be the unspoken leader. There is no way the smiling man is anything but an idiot."
"He wasn’t," the first man insisted, his eyes going back to Gu Han like he was worried the other man wouldn’t believe him. "None of them moved until she decided."
Gu Han looked between them. "Did she give an order?"
"No. Well, yeah. But not to them. She told us to leave."
"She told you to leave?" Gu Han repeated, not sure that he had heard correctly. "And when you refused? Because I am assuming that you refused to follow her orders, right?"
The men fell silent again as they looked at each other.
Chen Bo crossed his arms. "Six of you were defeated by five scavengers carrying craft supplies. I suggest one of you explain how before Gu Han loses his patience."
"They weren’t scavengers," the man with the bloody face said. His voice came out thick, but the fear behind it was clear. "They weren’t hungry. They didn’t care about anything except what was in the cart."
That was the first useful thing anyone had said.
Desperate survivors avoided fights when they could. They measured every bullet, every injury, and every risk against what they might gain. People who entered hostile territory for food could be pressured because food mattered more than pride.
People willing to fight over embroidery thread were either insane or so well supplied that they had forgotten what desperation felt like.
Gu Han wasn’t sure which possibility was worse.
"Tell me about their powers," he said after a long moment.
The reports came slowly at first, then all at once.
One man controlled metal strongly enough to tear rifles from their hands and redirect a fired bullet. Another produced fire without needing to touch anything. The quiet man near the front of the SUV used lightning, while the largest of the four couldn’t be cut by a machete.
Then there was the woman.
She hadn’t displayed a recognizable power, but the plant wrapped around her wrist had moved as though it understood every word she said. It had two heads, both filled with teeth, and enough poison to bring a grown man to his knees within seconds.
"She asked it whether it could stop the poison," one soldier said.
"And?" Gu Han asked.
"It hissed at her."
The man beside him rubbed his injured jaw. "She acted like that was an answer."
Gu Han didn’t laugh.
A mutated plant that could understand commands was valuable. A plant capable of producing fast-acting poison was even more so.
The woman might not lead the men because she was stronger. She could possess something they needed, something rare enough that four powerful men had decided protecting her was worth more than controlling her.
That made more sense than her being the strongest one out of all of them.
It also made her more useful.
