To cut straight to the point, I ended up being captured and dragged here by Elliot.
Bound tightly to a chair with ropes, I sat in Elliot’s room, contemplating the underground passages of the Happy House.
The passage Ethan and I had traveled led directly to the Sinclair Hotel’s Kintner branch. Who would’ve thought the Happy House’s underground pathways connected all the way to Kintner? It was astonishing.
As Charlie Green had said when we captured him in Brunel, the leader of this place was indeed Elliot.
"But why did it smell so bad where I was earlier?"
Caught off guard by Elliot’s sudden appearance, I hadn’t had the chance to properly examine the room.
However, Elliot had left briefly, as if he had urgent business to attend to, leaving me tied up. While he’d taken my axe, that wasn’t much of a concern.
"Technically, I didn’t get captured—I let myself be caught."
Clicking my tongue, I glanced around the empty room. Honestly, I could snap the ropes binding me with minimal effort if I wanted to.
But I stayed put for a reason: to turn this unfortunate encounter with Elliot into an opportunity. I needed to gather information about the Kintner survival camp and uncover his plans to attack Brunel.
Charlie Green, who had been at the Happy House, knew far less than I had hoped. He was nothing more than a pawn exploited by Elliot. I needed someone else to extract reliable information from.
"Should I just kidnap someone else and take them back?"
The base of operations for these people was the Sinclair Hotel.
No one here knew the Sinclair Hotel better than I did. I was at an advantage, at least over Elliot, when it came to understanding the building’s layout and systems.
I thought back to the novel A Love That Survived the Apocalypse. Despite the minor plot deviations, the main storyline was still progressing, as confirmed during my phone call with Aurora.
In the novel, Aurora’s group visited Brunel about six months after the world’s collapse. The route through Westmore was said to be blocked, but I had no idea how Aurora’s party managed to pass through it.
Skipping through the novel’s more tedious episodes was coming back to haunt me now. This was why you shouldn’t skim books. Lesson learned.
Anyway, it had been mentioned that:
"When we briefly stopped by Kintner, we found survivors. Quite a large number of them, in fact. However, we couldn’t save them.
They were all addicted to Bardon."
—From A Love That Survived the Apocalypse
Bardon was a type of powdered drug.
When consumed, it temporarily dulled the pain of injuries and could even cause hallucinations for some people. In a world teeming with monsters, becoming addicted to drugs like Bardon was incredibly dangerous.
And yet, Elliot had turned every survivor in his camp into a Bardon addict. Presumably, it was to make them easier to control and discard like disposable tools.
While the novel didn’t delve deeply into the Kintner segment, it did mention that Elliot had used the camp’s residents as effective human shields in battle.
"Wait, but didn’t the novel mention that Kintner was under attack from somewhere?"
Though it didn’t specify who was attacking, it did state that the attackers were after Bardon.
In a world like this, it wasn’t surprising that people would want drugs.
"That said, Charlie Green didn’t seem to be addicted to Bardon yet."
Which meant Elliot hadn’t distributed Bardon to the Kintner survivors at this point.
If the novel’s main events hadn’t deviated, Elliot would acquire Bardon sooner or later. I even remembered where he’d get it.
"Maybe I could strike a deal with Elliot by giving him the location of Bardon in exchange for information."
Knowledge was power in a world like this, and whoever held more of it held the upper hand.
The problem, however, was that I’d have to ensure Bardon’s retrieval later, which would be a hassle.
"Ugh, this is getting too complicated..."
After mulling it over for a while, I decided to shelve the idea for now. The information might come in handy later.
"Still, I wonder if Ethan’s okay."
He was probably panicking after my sudden disappearance. Knowing Ethan, he’d search the entire hotel to find me.
The hotel didn’t seem to house any monsters, and Ethan was more than capable of dealing with regular people. Unless he was surrounded by armed opponents, he’d be fine.
Even in the worst-case scenario, I trusted his abilities.
That meant I needed to gather as much information as possible before Ethan found me.
Right on cue, Elliot entered the room. A pipe dangled from his lips, and he smiled at me with a smug, amused expression.
Damn smoker. Smiling, huh?
I restrained myself, watching him grin like an idiot.
"Fancy meeting you here. Destiny, perhaps?"
"Do you want to meet your destiny here?"
Elliot’s eyes widened at my retort before he burst into loud laughter.
"You want to kill me, don’t you?"
"Whether you live or die isn’t my concern."
"Oh? Then what is it that concerns our dear Sinclair princess? You’re suspicious from head to toe."
Even in a world that’s gone to hell, I was still considered a suspicious figure. I felt sweat trickling down my back.
"Why the sudden change? You used to act so dignified. Oh, but then again, the world’s turned upside down. It would be strange if you hadn’t changed. The great Sinclair heiress isn’t so great after all."
What the hell was this smoker even saying? I nearly threw a punch, forgetting my goal to extract information.
"Miss Cherry, why is it that the first thing you think of is hitting someone?"
Ethan’s words suddenly came to mind, calming me down. Right. Stay calm, Cherry. Extract the information first. Then, when I leave, I’ll beat the crap out of him.
I mustered all my strength to curl my lips into a smile.
"What are you doing here?"
Elliot exhaled a puff of smoke from his pipe and answered leisurely.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.
"Building a new kingdom."
A new kingdom? It seemed Elliot had lost it even more after the world fell apart.
"And how did Lady Sinclair get in here? I pride myself on having tight security," he said, narrowing his eyes as he scanned me. A shiver ran down my spine, as if thin snakes were slithering all over me. His gaze was chilling—exactly the kind of stare you’d expect from a psycho.
I endured his unsettling eyes and got straight to the point.
"Care for an exchange of information? If you give me what I want, I’ll tell you where your kingdom’s security has a hole."
For now, I decided to shelve anything about Bardon; it didn’t seem useful at this moment.
Elliot raised a sharp eyebrow, the pipe still between his lips. After a moment of thought, he pulled a chair closer and sat down across from me.
Crossing his long legs gracefully, he asked, "Alright, let’s hear it before I decide whether to kill you."
No, you’re the one who’s going to die, you bastard.
Swallowing the insult, I smiled back at him.
Elliot seemed so relaxed because he thought he could kill me at any moment if he wanted to. It was only natural—there was no way he could know about my superhuman strength.
"Oh, wait, before that, let me ask you something. I’ve been keeping up with the news—Sinclair, in Brunel?"
His question made me pause briefly. This was a tense moment. I was here to figure out how he planned to attack Brunel, and now he was bringing it up. Though there was no way he could know that I had wiped out the search party he sent there.
Elliot puffed on his pipe, the acrid smell wafting to my nose. His gaze lingered on my face with a peculiar fascination, studying me as if I were a specimen under a microscope.
"I thought for sure you’d be dead by now. How does a frail girl like you manage to survive?"
"You’re alive, so why would it be strange if I am?"
Elliot blinked, momentarily dumbfounded, before bursting into laughter.
"Pfft—hahaha!"
As he laughed like a lunatic, I glanced toward the room’s entrance. Two men who had followed him inside were guarding the door, each holding a rifle.
"You’re more amusing than I expected. I thought you’d be boring."
"And I think you’re dull and unfunny. What now?"
For some reason, Elliot found that hilarious, too, laughing as if I were the funniest thing he’d ever encountered. He was clearly unhinged. What about my words was so amusing?
Elliot gestured to one of the men at the door, who handed him something—my axe.
"You were carrying this around? Doesn’t suit you."
"You wouldn’t say that if you saw how I used it."
Elliot didn’t believe me, merely scoffing. He didn’t even bother responding, shifting the topic instead.
"So... did you see it?"
"What?"
His sudden question caught me off guard, but I quickly composed myself.
"What are you talking about?"
Elliot exhaled a long puff of smoke, his lips curling into a sly smile.
"You came from Brunel, didn’t you? I sent some men there, but none of them came back. Thought maybe our little princess here might’ve seen something."
He fixed me with a penetrating stare, as if peeling me apart layer by layer. The way his eyes bore into me felt almost physical, like being filleted alive.
I glanced at the axe in his hand. The ropes binding me could be snapped with a bit of effort, and if I struck him from behind, I could easily take back the axe.
Elliot was within my reach, and if the men with rifles tried to shoot, I could use him as a shield.
Forget waiting for Ethan. I could end this now. Subduing Elliot with brute force and extracting the information directly would be faster.