“Liz?”
“I’m going back, Zenos,” Liz said as she stood up.
“Hey, wait—”
Ignoring him, Liz came closer to the cave entrance. As soon as she stepped out, she seemed to notice Lily, as her eyes widened in surprise for a moment. But then, without a word, she stepped out into the rain.
“Um, Liz!” Lily blurted out.
Slowly, Liz turned around. “What? You saw everything, didn’t you? Why didn’t you try to stop me?”
“I was planning on it, but...” Lily paused for a moment, then continued, “You seemed like you were serious...”
Liz scoffed. “As if. I just figured I’d make use of an old acquaintance, that’s all.”
“But you’re crying.”
Narrowing her eyes slightly, Liz wiped at her cheeks. “It’s just the rain.” With that, she disappeared into the misty surroundings.
“I don’t get it,” Zenos said as he emerged from the cave. “What was that all about, Liz? And, uh, why are you here, Lily?”
Lily stared at the surprised healer. “We all came here for you.”
“For me?” he echoed, looking around in bewilderment. “You came all the way out here, in the rain?”
They’d just spoken this morning, yet it felt like it’d been such a long time since they’d last seen each other. But Zenos’s face, surprise aside, hadn’t changed at all. Not in the slightest.
Gazing at his expression as if to engrave it upon her heart, Lily slowly nodded. “Yeah. We came all the way out here, in the rain, for you.” Her body was drenched, but she felt her chest grow gradually warmer. Holding back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes, Lily reached out a hand, smiling brightly. “So let’s go home, Zenos. You’ll catch a cold out here.”
“I mean, you’re way more likely to catch a cold than I am...”
Zenos stared at Lily for a while, then smiled slightly and grasped her hand.
“Yeah. Let’s go back to the clinic. Let’s go home.”
Chapter 7: Somewhere to Belong
The sky the next day was a refreshing blue, as though it hadn’t rained at all the day before.
At the clinic’s dining table, surrounded by the demi-humans, Zenos sat solemnly. “Liz is an assassin with the Black Guild...?”
Zophia, sitting across from him, nodded firmly. “There’s no two ways about it. The attack on the festival, her sudden appearance, the random attacks—all these events are connected.”
Wordlessly, Zenos crossed his arms. Liz had left the mountains saying she was going “back,” but hadn’t returned to the clinic. She hadn’t shown up today either, and her whereabouts were unknown.
“Also, in our opinion, she’s a succubus mutant,” Lynga said.
“When we went looking for you, a bunch of mind-controlled men blocked our path. There’s no doubt that that’s what she is,” Loewe concluded.
Frowning, Zenos muttered, “Liz is a mutant...” He recalled the sweet scent and the way his head had spun when Liz confessed to him in their secret base.
“Mutants” were humans who suddenly grew the ability to use the powers of a monster. There was no indication that Liz had been aware of this during their time together at the orphanage, but now that Zenos thought about it, the agitated adults would often grow softer when Liz attempted to defuse a tense situation. Maybe she’d been subconsciously using her power.
She must’ve become aware of her ability at some point after leaving the orphanage, and chosen to move underground and join the Black Guild.
“Doc, I think maybe her objective was to take over the slums by controlling you, because of how influential you are,” Zophia said.
Zenos hummed thoughtfully in response.
“And I don’t think that plan is thwarted just yet,” she continued.
“What do you mean?”
Zophia leaned forward slightly. “See, between yesterday and today, several of our guys have gone missing.”
“Gone missing?”
“I think they’ve been taken hostage by people from the Black Guild,” Lynga ventured. “Despite our warnings that they shouldn’t be wandering off alone.”
“The random stabbing has the younger guys on edge,” Loewe explained. “They’ve probably started looking for the stabber on their own.”
Though the demi-human leaders spoke plainly, their expressions were clouded with concern for their men.
“My, but it sounds like the situation is about to take a turn for the dangerous,” Carmilla said as she sat at the edge of the table sipping tea. “I would have preferred it if this all had ended when the romcom battle was settled.”
“The hells is a ‘romcom battle’?” Zenos asked.
Carmilla chuckled. “Oh, ’tis a private matter. Do not mind me.”
