Chapter 286: Chapter 286
Before dawn the next morning, or more accurately, in the middle of the night, while darkness still blanketed the world outside, the noise returned.
The shrill scream of a power saw cutting into metal mixed with the relentless pounding of hammers against the entrance. Somewhere below, an electric drill whined loudly enough to shake the entire building.
The racket was deafening.
Suzy shot upright in bed.
The movement startled her just enough to notice that Derek was already awake.
He had only just gotten up himself. His tousled curls stuck out in every direction as he rubbed sleep from his eyes, looking thoroughly irritated.
"So noisy..." he muttered, his voice thick with sleep.
Blinking, Suzy withdrew the hand that had somehow ended up resting across his firm abdomen during the night. She yawned, still half asleep.
"What’s going on?"
A calm voice drifted over from the window.
"They’re here. They’re surprisingly early."
Thomas.
The instant she heard him speak, every trace of drowsiness vanished.
Right. Thomas was still in the room.
Suzy whipped her head toward him.
Thomas happened to be looking back at her. Their eyes met, and he simply smiled, completely unbothered.
The memories of the previous night came flooding back.
With a groan, Suzy collapsed backward onto the mattress, burying her face in the pillow.
That’s right. Thomas had slept here too.
Yesterday had descended into complete absurdity.
It had started with Derek shamelessly insisting that, since he was still recovering, he needed to sleep beside her.
Unable to refuse someone who had only just recovered from such a serious illness, she had reluctantly agreed.
Then Thomas had arrived.
He hadn’t even asked. He had walked in as though the bedroom belonged to him, climbed onto the bed with effortless familiarity, and settled in without the slightest hesitation.
Derek had glared at him for a long moment.
In the end, though, he hadn’t said a single word. He had simply accepted Thomas’s presence.
Even now, Suzy had no idea what to make of it.
Was this... actually normal?
Once all three of them were awake, they stepped out of the bedroom one after another.
At the same moment, Leonard opened his own bedroom door.
The commotion downstairs had woken him as well, and he had been about to go notify Suzy.
Instead, the first thing he saw was Thomas, followed by Suzy... and then Derek, all emerging from the same room.
The expression on Leonard’s face shifted from puzzled to utterly dumbfounded.
He froze in place.
"...What?"
No. Wait. What the hell?
He had gone to bed early for once. Who would have thought he’d wake up to this?
His... his Suzy!
Leonard shot murderous glares at both Thomas and Derek before grabbing Suzy by the wrist and pulling her into his room.
The bedroom door slammed shut behind them.
The sound was immediately swallowed by the deafening roar of chainsaws echoing up from below.
"S... Suzy!" Leonard pointed wildly toward the hallway, his finger trembling. "You... the three of you...!"
Suzy nearly buried her face in her hands.
In her hurry to rush outside, she’d completely forgotten Leonard’s room was right next door.
Now he had caught them leaving together.
This was unbelievably awkward. And judging from his expression, he’d clearly misunderstood.
"Uncle Leonard, it’s not what you think!" she blurted out. "Nothing happened. I swear!"
She couldn’t have sounded more sincere.
Because it was the truth... Absolutely nothing had happened. The three of them had climbed into bed... and promptly fallen asleep.
Thomas had only joined them because he wanted to stake his claim.
Well... and partly because he wanted to irritate Derek.
As for Suzy, wedged between the two of them, she’d been hopelessly self-conscious at first.
Somewhere along the way, exhaustion had won, and she’d drifted off before realizing it.
Seeing the earnest panic on her face, Leonard visibly relaxed.
He could accept the unusual dynamic between the three of them.
That wasn’t the issue.
Walking out first thing in the morning to find all three emerging from the same bedroom... That was simply too much.
After Suzy repeated her assurances several more times, Leonard finally let the matter drop.
Even so, every time his gaze landed on Thomas or Derek afterward, it carried unmistakable hostility.
The two men tacitly avoided making eye contact with him, smoothly steering the conversation toward the noise downstairs instead.
Before they had exchanged more than a few sentences, the walkie-talkie in Suzy’s hand crackled to life.
It was Liam.
After a brief exchange, Suzy lowered the radio and looked at the others.
"They’re ready. We should head down too."
The others had already surveyed the situation.
This time, far more enemies had arrived than expected. There were more than twenty people.
Aaron’s group had already counted every one of them.
"Let’s go," Thomas said first as he stood.
The weapon Suzy had prepared for him rested comfortably in his hand––a long combat knife.
Leonard and Derek also armed themselves.
This time, Derek was coming with them, too.
Suzy slung her modified crossbow over one shoulder while fastening a long blade across her back. She was prepared for both ranged combat and close quarters.
The four of them hurried downstairs.
Aaron and the others were already fighting.
This time, the attackers had come prepared. There were simply too many of them. The reinforced entrance hadn’t held for long before finally giving way.
Chris’s men flooded into the stairwell, charging upward and crashing into Aaron’s group.
By the time Suzy arrived, fierce combat had already erupted.
The stairwell was narrow.
Without enough room to maneuver, Aaron’s group couldn’t fully exploit the range advantage of their crossbows.
At close quarters, the weapons were far less effective.
Liam had already thrown himself into the battle, barely managing to hold the attackers back.
Suzy’s group arrived last.
The moment they saw the situation, they rushed in without hesitation.
Their arrival immediately shifted the balance. Every one of them was a formidable fighter.
Thomas was especially terrifying. Even facing ten opponents alone wouldn’t have intimidated him.
Suzy had also improved dramatically.
After weeks of training and learning hand-to-hand combat, she moved with a speed and confidence that would have been impossible only a short time ago.
With Thomas and Suzy joining the fight, the tide began to turn.
Thomas plunged straight into the crowd. The knife in his hand seemed almost alive.
A flash of steel.
One attacker collapsed, clutching his shoulder.
Another swing.
Someone screamed as he grabbed his shattered knee.
Thomas never aimed to kill.
Every strike landed with surgical precision, slicing tendons or disabling joints, stripping away an opponent’s ability to fight without taking a life.
But there were simply too many enemies. Every time one fell, two more surged forward. The cramped stairwell left almost no room to maneuver.
On top of that, Thomas constantly had to avoid injuring his own allies. Despite his skill, he couldn’t guard against every attack.
Cuts and bruises gradually accumulated across his body.
None were serious, yet even so, they continued to pile up.
Leonard stayed close to Suzy’s side, his long blade sweeping through the narrow corridor.
A length of steel pipe came crashing toward them.
His sword met it head on.
The impact exploded into a shower of sparks beneath the emergency lights.
"Damn it!" Leonard cursed. "Are these people completely insane?"
Suzy cut down another attacker before she had time to catch her breath.
She couldn’t have agreed more. These people were far more ruthless than any of them had anticipated.
Aaron’s group wasn’t faring much better.
The cramped staircase robbed them of mobility, reducing their effectiveness by more than half.
At the back of the crowd, Chris shouted himself nearly hoarse.
"Get up there! All of you! There are only a handful of them! If you have to, wear them down!"
He refused to believe that so many people could lose to such a small group.
