His Doomsday Cage of Ten Years Regret Chapter 06

His Doomsday Cage of Ten Years Regret Chapter 06

Shane was far from the only person in the compound who resented me.

These people were born into privilege and used to looking down on others. They only tolerated sharing a roof with me out of respect for Peyton.

Worse still, in their eyes, Peyton and Winnie were the pair that actually made sense. I was nothing

more than a passing fling-someone who didn’t belong in their world.

What they despised most was that I contributed nothing. They risked their lives every day fighting

zombies and scavenging supplies, while I-someone they deeply looked down on got to enjoy the

fruits of their labor without lifting a finger.

I tried everything to smooth things over. I took care of all the indoor chores and met their hostility

with a forced smile.

But the harder I tried, the more openly they showed their contempt.

Many times I wanted to go to Peyton and vent. But when I saw how exhausted he was, and thought about the years of friendship between them, I held back my complaints, unwilling to land him in an

awkward spot.

He didn’t owe me anything, and he’d still gone out of his way to keep me safe. I should have been

grateful.

By the final week before the group was set to head north, their disdain for me was completely out in

the open.

The day before we were supposed to reach the Northern Safe Zone, Peyton and Winnie left ahead to scout the route. Seizing the chance, Shane pulled me out of the vehicle on a rural road.

“We earned our entry passes by fighting off hordes of infected. You don’t have a spot reserved for

you.”

“Five miles west, there’s a survival zone specifically for ordinary people like you.”

“You’ve leached off our group for an entire year. You can’t possibly be too useless to walk five

miles, can you?”

“Or do you need Peyton to come tell you to leave yourself?”

At the mention of Peyton’s name, something twitched in my numbed mind.

The intense attachment from those early days had faded. Peyton’s attitude toward me had growny noticeably cooler.

He still kissed me, held me close, and came looking for me the moment he returned from every

mission-but he rarely got intimate with me anymore.

On a few occasions I climbed onto his lap, and it was clear how affected he was, he’d only wrap me –

in a blanket and tell me to take it easy.

For the past month, he had been leaving before dawn and coming back late; saying he was working to secure my entry into the safe zone.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team whispered among themselves about the growing number of zombie cores he brought back each day.

“Peyton’s out doing power sync drills with Winnie again, right? No wonder everyone says they’re a perfect match. Even after they split up, their abilities mesh perfectly-feels like fate’s forcing them back together.”

I was chopping vegetables in the kitchen when the knife slipped in my hand, nearly severing my

fingertip.

Blood poured from the wound.

Strangely, I felt nothing.

I had thought about confronting Peyton, but I couldn’t bear the risk of being discarded. After weighing both outcomes, I brushed those harsh words aside.

It was clear Peyton’s interest in me had run its course.

The Northern Safe Zone was a stronghold for superpowered individuals. Ordinary people like me would struggle there without someone to protect them.

Maybe Shane was right. The civilian survival zone was a better fit for someone like me.

I picked up my luggage, brushed off the dust, and started walking west.

Shane hadn’t lied-there was indeed a civilian zone five miles west. But my luck was terrible: it had been overrun by zombies earlier that afternoon.

I barely escaped with my life and scrambled up a tree to hide from the horde below.

I was exhausted, and two tears squeezed out of my stinging eyes, bringing a small measure of relief. Once tears start, they burst forth like a breached reservoir-impossible to stop.

I started feeling sorry for myself. I blamed Peyton for being cold. We’d shared an intimate bond for more than a year. Even if he was tired of me, he could have said something. At least given me a heads-up.

Then it hit me: his distance over the past month had been the heads-up.

Then I hated myself for being so helpless. I could only survive by living off other people’s charity i was the one who’d manipulated him in the first place, and here I was crying like the victim of some tragedy.

Pathetic.

I might as well be dead.

I curled my arms around a branch and drifted off to sleep between quiet sobs.

I was jolted awake in the middle of the night by the sound of gunfire and combat.

Peyton and his team had tracked me down. He was tearing through the zombie horde like a man

possessed, grabbing one after another, checking their faces, cutting them down-like he didn’t

care if he made it out alive.

I stayed perfectly still, afraid that any noise would draw the zombies right to me.

Shane-who had hated me more than anyone-spotted me first and signaled the others.

Winnie, who was closest to me, sprinted toward the tree without hesitation.

At that exact moment, the zombies that had been lying in ambush surged out from the shadows, charging straight for her and me.

In my final seconds, I only had time to shove Winnie clear of the encirclement.

At least one of us would survive. We’d only be handing these infected an easy victory if we both perished.