Chapter Six

Though Faye was no virgin, it had only been a few months for her, she was still befuddled at what to do when his lips met hers.

Uselessly, her hands gripped the bedsheet as she let him press her deeper into the plush pillows that had been propping her up.

Large hands cupped either side of her head, forcing it to remain still and obediently, while his tongue invaded her mouth laying its authoritative claim.

An awkward gurgle of her empty stomach brought Yichen back to his sanity.

Pulling away, he left one hand on her face, a thumb tenderly wiping her flushed cheeks.

"Does that answer your question?" He turned the question on to her, leaving her no room to argue about their relationship going forward.

Frowning, she gave an indignant stare, "You said I was too young."

Yichen scoffed, looking away to hide his growing smirk. Had the brat felt she was too young when she joined him in the shower after only knowing him a few months in the dream? Sure, Claire had been the actual one to plot it, but the little minx was the one who pushed him too far.

"You won't be going to university anymore, didn't Jean tell you I was only waiting for you to finish that first," this was the excuse he had pawned off on the elders to leave him alone before.

The warm fuzzy feeling in his chest turned cold. She won't be going to university anymore, because society's era of peace had ended...

"Here, drink your tea," he reached for the cup. After testing its temperature with his own lips, he raised it to hers.

"My hands work you know," Faye grumbled as he blew on another spoon of congee before pressing it to her pouting, plump lips.

"En. They do," Yichen agreed with her, still spoon-feeding her.

With a tummy full of food, Faye felt nature's call. "Can you unhook this, I want to go clean up."

"Claire is not back yet," Yichen shook his head. He had unabashedly opened her suitcase and was putting the clothes away in the room.

As his back was turned, Faye simply figured out the cannula herself and took it out. Her eyes widened at the sight of the needle hole healing instantly.

Just what had that virus done to her body?

Slowly, she walked a little unsteadily towards the open en-suite door. Even if there was no pain, they felt a little numb from being still too long.

Catching her moving, Yichen dropped her pajamas and ran to hold her from behind, "why are you so impatient?"

Faye felt she had inherited another parent and not a boyfriend. Wasn't this completely overboard? Not even her parents fussed over her this much.

Losing her patience, she shrugged him off and slammed the bathroom door in his face.

When she returned, clean and in a bathrobe, a sports outfit was neatly folded on the bed, underwear included. Yichen was nowhere to be seen.

Blushing, she dressed in the clothes he selected, gym leggings, sports bra, and oversized t-shirt; her go-to for the gym. Since this was her favorite gym outfit, she decided to forgive him for fussing and gingerly left the room.

"Wifey," Claire assaulted her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Yichen had a two-story, five bedroomed penthouse on top of the hotel's South Wing. It looked like he lived here permanently.

"Claire?" Faye embraced her back, burrowing her head into her neck, smelling the yummy spicy food she'd just eaten.

As the two girls walked to the living room to catch up, Yichen was in Miles' office.

"This is everyone in the hotel?" Yichen asked, flipping through the printed profiles of both staff and guests.

"Yes, twenty-four staff, forty-two guests," Miles nodded.

Finding Faye's profile, Yichen moved it next to his atop the staff pile. Miles' peered over his shoulder, "Why is Miss Fraizer on the staff pile?"

"She's your new boss," Yichen confirmed the old man's thoughts. "So we know what to do with the staff, they're all wanting to stay here and want us to assist in bringing their family over. What about the guests?"

Bai Cheng, who was smoking a cigar on the sofa, finally spoke up, "Nobody here is local to Australia, mainly from Europe, America, or Asia. They are either workers or tourists who didn't get a flight in time before the legislation or had the virus keeping them from travelling. So they have nowhere to go."

"But have you asked if they actually want to stay?" Yichen took a cigar himself to smoke whilst going over the dream's memories of the names he saw.

There were nine children here in total, the eldest sixteen and the youngest was only three. Thankfully, they all had a surviving caregiver, so that wasn't an issue, but the halls were often filled with their cries.

As it gets quieter outside, the noisier this place would get.

There was no fence or walls except for around the pier, all the ground floors faced the busy Oriental section of the city.

Due to this, they upgraded the guests to VIP suites on the top floors. Only allowing staff to come downstairs when needed. Right now the dead were slow and stupid, but they wouldn't remain this way for long.

The virus was constantly mutating, growing stronger. Only a handful of the people, besides himself and Faye, had the virus and were immune so far. Two of which were five-year-old twins... Hardly enough soldiers to fortify themselves here properly.

Could he find a place to keep them all alive if he tried hard enough? So few children survived, and even fewer were born safely after. If his child wanted playmates he needed to ensure a safe location.

If the people did not mutate too, they were hopelessly crushed in the later years.

"Tomorrow morning, gather them together, we can only give them a choice. For now, how's the planning going for the search and rescue?"

"We're low on ammunition and the Glocks are all noisy," Bai Cheng groaned, "there are hundreds of them on the street, but I want to get going whilst we can still confirm their locations over the mobile."

Yichen nodded, the mobiles would all stop working soon, it was better to go now whilst they could communicate with the survivors.

"What about Old Wang's, is that on the way?" Yichen asked, guiding his friend in the right direction.

"Why didn't I think of that old fucker," Bai Cheng pulled out his mobile phone and started to make a call. Only it did not connect through. "Fuck, do you have his son's number?"

Yichen shook his head, "His son's abroad in China visiting his wife's family."

"I guess if we can't get through to the man, we can only break in," Bai Cheng frowned, "hopefully he'll forgive us."

"If he's not picking up the phone, chances are he's either dead or somebody's already thought ahead of us," Yichen took a long drag of his cigar, "Cheng ge, times have changed, there's no ownership of property, no use for bits of paper and plastic to buy goods, no law..."

"The military will step in soon, isn't Grandma Jean alright, surely that means the military is still intact," Bai Cheng argued.

"Grandma Jean is on the East Coast, thousands of miles away. We have no idea of the condition of the military here. The guards at the Fraizer's villa haven't been able to reach anyone."

The gloomy news dampened Bai Cheng's spirit, forcing him to confront his fears instead of escaping into the fantasy of 'help' coming to rescue them.

Miles interrupted the gloomy pair with a printed map of the city, marking the locations of their staff's loved ones.

"This is Old Wang's, not far at all on a normal day," Yichen's finger pressed on the outskirts of the commercial district of the city's Oriental corner. Thankfully, most of their staff were from this part of the City, they could only focus on bringing them back to the hotel first whilst 'testing the waters'.

There were only ten guards, including the two assigned to his girl, under Bai Cheng. Since they all had guns, it was only those caught by the virus initially or by surprise, who died. It was mainly the larger number of staff under Miles that had been hit hard.

If they took all ten guards, like last time, it would leave the others defenseless. Yichen had thought just leaving guns with Miles' staff would be enough. Thinking the zombies their greatest threat, they hadn't thought of others with guns would try to occupy the place whilst they were gone.

When they returned, worn and haggard, the staff had certainly scared the locals away but also lured a crowd of hundreds of zombies to surround them. This had resorted to everyone hiding with all their bullets gone. Plus two guests and one staff member had died by being shot.

Hanging his head in his hands, Yichen deliberated on what to do.

Meanwhile, up in the penthouse, Faye had Yichen's mobile phone and was anxiously waiting for Teddy to pick up the phone.

On the fourth attempt, he finally picked up, "Who is this?"

Hearing the youthful voice, Faye felt her eyes water like a damn breaking. Her words were incomprehensible as she sobbed, forcing Claire to take over the phone and put it on speaker.

"Teddy, it's Claire, I'm with Faye," Claire rubbed her hand up and down Faye's back, "we're both in the hotel and safe, how are you?"

"Thank God you called," Teddy exclaimed with joy, "Gramps said you were fine, but nobody called."

"We lost our mobiles on the beach, Faye was a little unwell so couldn't ring and you know I can't remember numbers to save my life," Claire felt a little guilty, she should have asked Yichen to find a way to get her in touch.

She had grown up as both their neighbor and Faye's classmate at school. She'd babysat the kid and his friends countless times.

"Is she alright? What was wrong? Did she get bitten?" Teddy fired question after question.

Hearing his panic, Faye sobered up from her hysterics, "I'm fine Teddy, I'm really fine, in fact, I'm better than fine. Since I got bit I can heal like one of those people from the comics you love."

"Ah, ah, you too?" Teddy sounded like a kid meeting Santa, making Faye's heart twinge. She wanted to hold him close. That fever had sucked her soul dry, to imagine her baby brother going through the same...

"Why were you bitten? Aren't you in the villa?" Faye questioned, picking up on the most important part of his words.

"I, I was playing out..." Teddy's previous childish joy was squashed at his sister's stern tone, "We were on the boat, and Henry and Tommy..."

"Alright, alright, so long you're good now, how are Archie, Jaxon, and Milo?"

"Archie and I were both bitten, but we're good, unlike Tommy... Jaxon and Milo are a bit... shaken up," Teddy explained.

"What about the guards and Grandma Wang?" Faye bit her lip waiting for the response. Grandma Wang was the live-in housekeeper who cooked their meals, overlooked the maids, and essentially 'babysat' them on their grandparents' behalf when they had to travel for work.

"Howard and Tracey are alright." At his failure to mention Grandma Wang, Faye's heart collapsed.

"We'll be coming to you soon, is the situation okay outside?"

"Quiet, since the villa's on the outskirts and fenced in we haven't had any bother," Teddy sighed, then Faye heard the soft voice of Milo in the background. He was the 'baby' of the small friend group, only just turned fifteen, and was Henry's boyfriend.

"Milo sweetie, it's Faye and Claire," Faye spoke up, hoping he could hear her. Teddy caught on and put his phone on speaker mode.

"Are you both okay?" His little voice sounded tired. Faye glanced at the time and noticed it was already past midnight.

"Yeah, we're really good, that man Grandma was trying to pair me up with is looking after us and he has a bunch of men with guns. We're going to come in a few days, so can you help me look after Teddy for a bit?"

Teddy let out a curse, making Milo giggle, "Sure, I'll keep him out of trouble for you."

"Good boy, now it's late, get yourselves to sleep and I'll call you tomorrow morning," Faye spoke warmly, but her face was stone cold. She felt useless and helpless, forced to use the power of the boyfriend thrust onto her, to reassure the kids; unable to use her own strength...

The four repeatedly said their goodnights and hung up the phone.

Before when Faye woke, she felt energized with a new lease on life, now she felt emotionally drained beyond compare.

Neither of her grandparents had mobiles to contact, whilst at the military base in the capital they were only able to use satellite phones, which only a guard at the villa had access to.

All she wanted was to curl into bed with her grandma and have her stroke her hair until she fell asleep.

Instead, she parted ways with Claire, dressed in her pajamas and curled up in the large, cold bed alone to cry softly.

When Yichen returned, Faye had only just fallen asleep, her eyes puffy and red.

Yichen stripped off his smoke-smelling clothes and climbed into the bed beside her, not feeling shy in the slightest. She was too exhausted to care when she felt the disturbance in the bed. Only rolling away from him to hug the pillow tighter.

Carefully, Yichen inched over, to reach and stroke her hair, recalling how she used to like it before. A few moments later she gave up the pillow to roll into his chest, burrowing her head into his bare chest still fast asleep.

Just as Yichen felt himself drifting off to sleep, he couldn't help but bitterly scold himself when he heard the little girl call out for her grandma in her sleep.