Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

Chapter 321: Leave Her Alone

Gu Han had stopped counting the number of dead men halfway through the report.

The five men standing in front of his desk had all made it back alive, but none of them looked relieved about it. One kept rubbing his wrists where it was clear something had left marks on him, while another stared at the wooden floor like he expected something to break through it at any moment. Even the man closest to the door had refused the chair offered to him, although Gu Han doubted his shaking legs would hold him much longer.

Chen Bo stood near the window with his arms crossed, listening to their report without interrupting. His face was calm, but the tight line of his jaw told Gu Han exactly what he thought of the situation.

East River Raiders had attacked the mansion, and East River, one of the deadliest of new factions that had risen after the government was destroyed, had been all but completely wiped out.

Gu Han already understood that much. He didn’t need another list of broken trucks, burned bodies, or men dragged underground. The details that mattered were the ones his watchers kept trying to avoid.

He leaned back in his chair and looked at the man who had spoken most of the time. "When did the woman notice you?"

The man swallowed before glancing at the others, clearly hoping someone would give him a better answer. No one did.

"Before the fighting started," he finally admitted. "Maybe before East River even arrived, but we can’t be sure. She at least left her house knowing that we were there."

Gu Han’s fingers stopped tapping against the arm of his chair. "You were hidden inside the houses across the street."

"We thought we were." The man rubbed his wrists again, harder this time. "But the second we snuck inside; the plants were already around the windows and under the floors. They moved whenever we moved. She knew which rooms we were in and where each of us was standing."

That explained why all five men had returned with the same frightened look in their eyes.

They had spent the entire fight believing that they were invisible, only to learn that a single woman had known exactly where they were and had simply chosen not to kill them.

Gu Han looked over the line of men. "Why did she let you leave?"

This time, the answer came quickly.

"To carry her message."

Of course.

She hadn’t spared them because she was merciful. She had kept them alive because dead men couldn’t return to Gu Han and explain what they had seen.

The message itself had been simple enough. Every red marker was to be removed. His patrols were to stay away from the mansion. No one was to enter her territory or offer her protection again. If he sent anyone else, they would die. If he went there himself without being invited, he would die too.

It was the kind of warning Gu Han would normally punish someone for giving him.

The problem was that this woman had already shown she could keep her word. She had proved it by taking out a faction that not even he could take out.

One of the men near the back shifted his weight and looked toward the door. The movement was small, but Gu Han caught it.

"What else?"

The man’s face tightened for a moment before he shook his head. "It’s nothing," he stammered, his face turning pale when he realized that he had Gu Han’s undivided attention.

"You were sent to report everything," Gu Han reminded him. "So report everything."

For several seconds, the man said nothing. Then he looked down at the floor and quietly admitted, "She waved at me."

Gu Han stared at him.

The man lifted one hand as though he might need to show him what a wave looked like, then seemed to think better of it. "I lowered the binoculars for a second. She looked right at the window, smiled, and waved."

Chen Bo turned from the window.

Out of everything the men had reported, that small detail bothered Gu Han the most.

The woman had been standing in the middle of an attack, surrounded by gunfire, flames, and people trying to reach her house. Even then, she had known the exact moment one of his men lowered his binoculars. She hadn’t merely known they were hiding nearby. She had been watching them while they watched her.

His men had never been hidden.

They had only been allowed to feel hidden.

Gu Han lowered his gaze to the map spread across his desk. Red strips of cloth marked the roads around the mansion, making it look as though the entire area belonged to him. Before today, those markers had been useful. They warned smaller groups away and reminded the nearby survivors who controlled the roads.

Now they made him look like a fool.

Everyone would hear what had happened outside that monster’s mansion. Stories like that travelled faster than people, and each person telling it would make the massacre larger and more terrible. By tomorrow, every survivor nearby would know that East River had entered land marked by Gu Han and had been wiped out while his own men stood inside nearby houses and watched.

If he left the red markers in place, they would become proof that he had claimed territory he couldn’t control. If he removed them, everyone would know that an unknown woman had forced him to back down.

Either way, she had damaged his position without sending a single person to confront him.

Gu Han had planned to let East River weaken the mansion. He had expected the attack to frighten a small band of survivors, drain her supplies, or at least force the people around her to show everything they could do. Once the fighting ended, he would have stepped in, offered protection, and waited for her to understand that accepting his help was safer than standing alone.

Instead, East River had made her stronger without even trying to.

The survivors living nearby now knew the mansion could defend itself. Any group thinking about testing the massive mansion would remember what happened to the people who tried. Even the men standing in Gu Han’s office looked as though they would rather walk into a nest of zombies than return to that road.

He had wanted the woman to learn that she needed him.

Instead, he had taught everyone else why they should leave her alone.

Gu Han slowly rubbed his thumb along the edge of the map before turning toward Chen Bo. "What are you thinking?"

Chen Bo looked at the five shaken men, then at the red cloth spread across the roads. He took his time before answering, which meant Gu Han already knew he wasn’t going to like what came next.

"I think we need to leave them the fuck alone," Chen Bo replied. "We won’t survive a full-on war with them."

Gu Han nodded his head.

"I agree."