"We need to quarantine you all and check for injuries," Wei Guang announced, looking at the four blood-covered men.

In reality, he would prefer to do anything but put them in quarantine.

Night was coming, and that meant that the zombies were going to become more active. He needed his men watching the gate, not doing body checks. But, on the other hand, they couldn’t take the chance that one of them had been bitten and was going to turn at any moment.

That, too, would be a death sentence.

"We’ll let you go after," he tacked on like an after thought. He tried to make it sound reassuring, but, by the way the four men were staring at him, he missed the mark.

"The fuck you are," Yuche sneered.

Wei’s eyes moved to him. "That wasn’t a request," he replied, his voice dropping a level. He might be polite to Zhou Chenghai because they used to work together, but he wouldn’t let the other three men walk over him.

Especially when it came to the safety and security of everyone on base.

"Then you should work on your tone."

Chenghai turned his head slightly, his gaze sharpening toward Wei. "We dealt with infected activity on the road. No bites. No scratches. The blood isn’t ours. We’re going home."

"You don’t get to decide that," Wei replied with a shake of his head. "This is a military operation. You will cooperate."

Lingyun leaned forward from the backseat, still smiling without any warmth. "Funny. I was just thinking that the military is on our land, in our house. Or did you forget that in your hurry to establish dominance?"

The soldiers around the barricade shifted at the tone. Wei noticed, and so did Yuche.

Good. Let them be nervous.

Wei drew in a slow breath through his nose, clearly trying to keep control of the situation. "You left the secured perimeter against direct orders, came back covered in blood, and now she is unconscious. I need to know what happened."

"She got tired from shopping for so long," Lingyun answered, rolling his eyes like it should have been obvious. "Have you never been on a shopping spree? Not to mention, this was more retail therapy than a spree. That requires a whole other type of physical commitment."

Wei stared at him.

Lingyun stared back.

"You expect me to believe that?"

"Ah," Lingyun said, nodding like he had finally figured everything out. "You’ve been single for a while huh? Or maybe you never had a girlfriend? Clearly you don’t know how to take care of the weaker sex. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be questioning the difference between a spree and therapy."

The air around them tightened as a few soldiers looked at each other and sagely nodded in agreement. Taking their girlfriends or wives shopping was a sport in and of itself.

Realizing that he was losing control of the situation, Wei Guang clenched his fists as he felt his power reacting to his temper. The metal along the barricades gave a soft creak in warning before he took a steading breath.

Yuche’s mouth curved slightly when he felt it. Interesting. The colonel had decent control, but not enough to hide everything... and not nearly enough to be on his level.

Yuche shifted Rouxi slightly higher against his chest, making sure her head stayed tucked against him. The baby vine lifted its head from her collarbone and looked directly at Wei through the window.

Wei froze.

"What is that?"

"A plant," Yuche answered.

"It has teeth."

"Lots of things have teeth."

"That is not normal."

Lingyun snorted. "Welcome to the apocalypse."

Wei looked like he was five seconds away from ordering all of them out of the SUV by force, which would have been unfortunate for everyone standing outside.

The problem was that Wei wasn’t stupid. He looked at Chenghai, at Zhenlan, at Lingyun, at Yuche, and finally back at Rouxi.

Whatever he saw made his jaw tighten.

"Open the trunk," he said instead. "I want to see what type of supplies you managed to get with her therapy spree."

"No," Zhenlan replied calmly.

Wei’s expression darkened. "If you brought supplies back from outside the perimeter, they need to be inspected."

"We went shopping," Lingyun said again.

"For jewelry," Yuche added.

Wei’s eyes narrowed. "Jewelry."

"Yes."

"In the middle of an infected zone."

"Apparently she was in the mood," Chenghai replied with a casual shrug.

The silence that followed was almost impressive. Wei looked at all of them like he was trying to decide if they had lost their minds or if they were simply insulting his intelligence on purpose.

Truth be told, it was probably both.

Finally, he stepped closer to the window, lowering his voice so that the soldiers around them wouldn’t hear. "Something happened out there."

Nobody answered.

His gaze flicked to Rouxi again. "Something serious."

Yuche’s fingers tightened once around Rouxi’s jacket before he forced them to relax. "She is going home."

"She is unconscious," Wei said, his voice dropping even lower. "If she was exposed to anything, if she was injured, if she was bitten and you’re hiding it—"

"She wasn’t bitten," Chenghai cut in.

"And you know that for certain?"

The temperature in the SUV changed.

Not literally, but enough that Yuche felt every man inside the vehicle go still at the same time. Wei must have realized he had stepped wrong because his eyes moved from Chenghai to Zhenlan, then to Lingyun, then finally landed on Yuche again.

"She doesn’t have a mark on her," Yuche said, each word slow enough to be understood. "You can see that from where you’re standing."

"She could have something hidden under her clothes."

"Try it," Zhenlan said, his voice dropping to a growl. "Finish that thought and I promise you, you won’t live to see tomorrow."

Wei looked at him then, and for one second, something old passed between the men in the SUV and the man outside of it.

Then the baby vine hissed.

Every soldier close enough to hear it tightened his grip on his weapon.

Rouxi didn’t move.

That, more than anything, made Yuche want to get her inside. She would have had something to say about this. Something dry, dismissive, and probably insulting enough to make Wei’s eye twitch. The fact that she was silent made the entire checkpoint feel wrong.

Wei looked at the vine again. "That thing needs to be contained."

Lingyun let out a soft laugh. "You first."

"It’s attached to her."

"Yeah," Lingyun replied. "And it likes her more than you." Then he got a devilish smile on his face. "You know what? Why don’t you try to take it from her."

Wei’s mouth tightened. "This isn’t funny."

"No," Chenghai said quietly. "It isn’t."

That finally made Wei pause.

Chenghai had not raised his voice. He had not leaned forward or made a threat. He only looked at Wei through the windshield with blood drying across one cheek.

"We are taking her home," Chenghai continued. "You can make whatever report helps you sleep tonight. But you are not taking her out of this vehicle, and you are not delaying us any longer."

Wei looked at him for a long moment.

Then at the baby vine still staring at him with its mouth slightly open.

Then back at the four blood-covered men who were clearly not going to move unless someone made the mistake of forcing them.

After several seconds, Wei lifted one hand.

The barricade moved.

"Fine," he said. "But I will be speaking to you again in the morning."

"Sounds exhausting," Lingyun muttered.

Zhenlan rolled the window up before Wei could respond.

The SUV moved forward slowly, passing through the checkpoint while soldiers watched from both sides. No one spoke until the barricade was behind them and the mansion gates were ahead.

Then Chenghai exhaled.

"That was too easy."

Yuche looked down at Rouxi. Her lashes didn’t move. Her breathing stayed even. The baby vine finally lowered its head back against her neck, still alert, still guarding.

"No," Yuche said quietly. "He let us through because he knows it wasn’t."

The mansion lights appeared ahead through the dark, warm and steady against the ruined street. For the first time since Rouxi collapsed, Yuche allowed himself to look at her properly.

She had hidden everything until her body stopped letting her, and even unconscious, she had still managed to become the one thing everyone around her moved to protect.

Zhenlan pulled the SUV to a stop in front of the house.

Yuche opened the door before anyone else could move.

This time, nobody told him to hand her over.