Chapter Eleven

"Miss Fraizer," Daichi nudged Faye's shoulder as she slept on the lounge under the stars. Most of her friends had gone to their rooms, leaving only her and David hogging their lounge chairs in peace, whilst Claire slept half on the floor, half over Faye's legs.

Poppy had gone to get the guards to help shift Claire into the bed they would share with David. The rooms were limited and the trio had claimed one of the largest rooms saying all three would share the same bed.

It got them a few strange looks, but going off David's feminine appearance, they thought he was either a lucky bastard or accurately guessed his sexual orientation.

Faye moved her legs, forcing Claire to grumble and wake up.

"Daichi, Daichi, take me to bed," Claire opened her arms like a child awaiting their parent.

Faye rolled her eyes and stretched to nudge David awake also.

"I'll go myself," she smiled to Daichi, wondering if the bloke would survive the night. Once she ensured David woke up, she stumbled back up to her room alone.

Behind closed doors, she heard a few sobs of children unable to sleep. Remembering the two bin bags of soft toys, she went back down to the main lounge where Miles had stashed the supplies and grabbed the bags.

Gently she knocked on the doors where the children's cries came from and let them pick a soft toy each one by one.

Hearing the hallway full of guest suites much quieter than before, she made her way back down to the main deck, to put the rest of the soft toys back. There, she spotted Leo, leaning against the glass window and holding a glass of water alone.

When his baby blue eyes found her blue-green, she hurriedly tossed the bag and turned back to the stairs. Leo set down the glass and stormed over, gripping her arm tightly.

"Can you not even look at me now?" He growled, though he had attempted to sober himself up he was drunk. Faye hated him the most when he was drunk.

"Why should I want to?" Faye quipped, trying to shake from his grip. He felt stronger than before.

"Does the last decade mean absolutely nothing to you?" Leo pushed her against the hallway wall, not realizing his own strength and causing Faye to knock her head against it. "Shit sorry."

Faye raised her arms, shaking them to force him to keep away.

"Not since the day I walked in on you and Sarah, no," Faye coldly remarked whilst rubbing her aching head. She felt feverish again, it seemed even a quick shower hadn't prevented her from catching a cold.

"I told you, I was just drunk, she kept coming on to me and you're always so cold," Leo argued back, not keeping his voice down.

Worried he would wake the only just settled children upstairs, Faye raised a finger to her lips, "There are children sleeping, can't you be more considerate and think about someone other than yourself for once?"

"I thought about you for years, and what did I get? A cold shoulder. Did you even once treat me like your boyfriend?"

Faye gulped, he was only getting louder, his gestures more aggressive.

"Unlike some people, I don't just fuck anyone, Leo. Just go to bed, sober up, and forget we even had this conversation," Faye tried to walk past him but was restrained from behind in his bulky arms.

"Why are you so cold? Do you love your damn Sharks so much you become as cold-blooded as them?" Leo whined into her ear, finally lowering his voice. "Even in bed you were no better than a dead fish, lying there..."

"Faye," Yichen's clear voice called out in the hallway, thankfully interrupting Leo's painful remanence of their time together, "are you alright?"

Leo's grip around her tightened as Yichen halted in front of them. Seeing Yichen's hand resting on the gun on his hip, Leo finally relented and let Faye go.

"Sober up buddy, then apologize to her tomorrow," Yichen gently moved Faye behind him, his eyes narrowed straight into Leo's with a warning. When Leo scoffed, Yichen rolled his eyes and turned to push Faye along, his hand hovering behind her lower back, limiting his touch.

"What's so good about second-hand goods anyway?" Leo muttered under his breath, making Faye flinch and Yichen pause.

"We're all adults here, well mostly all adults," Yichen's eyes skimmed over Leo's childish face, "only a boy would care about something like that. In the end, all that matters is that I'll be the last man alive that touches her, do you understand?" His dominant right hand firmly pressed on his Glock, clearly insinuating that if Leo was to touch her again he would be a dead man.

Leo stormed back towards the lounge area, leaving Yichen to mutter coaxingly to Faye, "You know there are five species of shark that are warm-blooded."

When she didn't respond, he went over the information he'd read up on during the 'therapy' he was forced into after witnessing his father being attacked by a shark.

"Which ones are they again? They have a fishy name... Mackeral?" He pestered, wanting her mind to focus only on the damn sharks and not the beast they'd left behind.

"Lamnidae, the mackerel sharks are part of the Lamnidae family, then there's the Salmon Shark that's the most warm-blooded of the species, but White sharks can raise their stomach's temperature..."

Listening to her ramble, Yichen only smiled faintly, guiding her up the narrow stairs to their room.

After tucking her into the bed, he rummaged through the bags of snacks and drinks and found her favorite dr. pepper. "Here," he passed it over to her.

Faye took it without batting an eye, only after tasting it did she realize he'd picked her favorite drink, "thank you."

"The mobile phones have stopped working, the city's had their first brownout," Yichen casually explained when he spotted her reaching for her mobile on the bedside table, "but we can get through to your brother via radio, I was just checking up on their situation before and they're all safely waiting in the villa for us. We're almost at the docks nearby, but we'll wait until morning light before we leave the yacht."

"Do we have to wait?" Faye sighed, feeling guilty that he had been working so hard whilst she and her friends had blown off steam instead. The gap between them was so large... Maybe he had been right to call her 'too young' before.

"Not all the villas are empty, some with living, some with the dead. It's safer to do it when we have a reliable light source," Yichen nervously climbed onto the bed, above the duvet.

Though she was less shaken up, she still looked like a frightened bunny to him, making him feel all the more like the big bad wolf.

"Get some sleep, my men are taking shifts to guard the yacht, if you're lucky maybe that tiger shark is still following us and you can say hello to it tomorrow," he teased, reaching over cautiously to stroke her hair the way he knew she liked.

Like a soft, submissive kitten, she rolled over into him, her arm reaching to hug around his chest.

"Thank you, I really mean it Yichen, thank you so much," she spoke softly into his shirt.

"I should be the one to say thank you," he finally muttered once he heard her gentle snores, "thank you for giving this arrogant bastard another chance."

When he woke, Faye was awkwardly clinging to him like an octopus and little Yichen was wide awake and greeting him, mere inches from her hand.

"Fuck," he groaned, awkwardly sliding out from under her to head to the ensuite.

When he returned, fresh as a daisy from a bitterly cold shower, she finally woke up.

"Go get some breakfast, I'll be clearing ahead first, then we'll come back to transport you," he instructed, glancing out to the docks through the window.

"No," she pushed off the duvet he had tucked her under just moments before and climbed off the bed to embrace him, "let me go with, I can use a gun or a machete, don't leave me on here alone."

Feeling that she had been truly panicked by Leo last night, he could only agree, "But breakfast first."

"So long you eat something too," she grumbled, finally letting go to enter the ensuite.

After checking things over with the guards, waiting in the Fraizer villa, Yichen watched Miles skillfully park the yacht onto the docks. He was ashamed at how poorly he drove the yacht to the resort before, so took note of everything Miles did just in case he needed to drive one again later.

"Cheng ge, wait here and keep an eye on everyone for me, I'll take six people with me and Faye to make sure the path is clear first," Yichen instructed, checking over his equipment.

"Are you sure it's wise taking her with you?" Bai Cheng asked, glancing over Yichen's shoulder to Faye standing with three of her friends. "She's just a small girl, what if she gets hurt?"

"She knows more Mandarin than you think Cheng ge," Yichen laughed noticing Faye's glare in their direction. One of the gifts those who were immune got at the beginning was heightened senses, she could hear every word if she wanted to and she did.

"She can fire a gun and will be right beside me, not to mention she is immune to turning like me," Yichen boasted with a proud smile, "think about yourself, one bite and it could be the end for you."

Yichen knew that this wasn't the case, Bai Cheng was bitten whilst rescuing survivors in the dream and thankfully was immune then. If he could just trust his dream a little more, he'd have grabbed a zombie to bite the ones he knew were immune now, if he thought they'd let him.

"How do you know that you're immune, you could just be lucky and another bite is all it takes..." Bai Cheng complained. "Has Grandma Jean been leaking information to you and Xiao Xin or something?"

"It's just a guess, but if you want... later I could find a zombie to bite you and we can find out whether you're immune or not?"

Bai Cheng punched Yichen's upper arm and walked off in a huff. Oh well, he could only let fate play out.

Daichi, Haofang, and two other guards named Jack and Lingyun followed Yichen and Faye onto the wooden docks and passed all the small yachts to the community gates.

The gates were made of metal and joined a road from the community directly onto the stone pier, making it the only way onto the pier, except by the ocean.

Behind the gates, two zombies were wandering on the road. One was clean, except for blood around its mouth, the other was bitten half to death wearing rags.

Raising his gun, Yichen shot the two between the eyes as they staggered over and waited. Sure enough, the noise and their smell alerted those nearby to come from hidden areas, one even fell from an upstairs window.

The other guards helped him clear the in total thirty-four zombies from behind the gate. Thankfully, they had taken the time to get mainly ammunition from Old Wang's before. They waited another ten minutes before Yichen approached the gate, which was locked electronically.

"How do we get in?" Daichi asked, noticing the guard booth on the other side of the wall, beside the gate empty. "Should one of us climb over?"

"No need," Yichen shook his head, then placed his hand over the lock. Closing his eyes he attempted something that took him weeks to learn in the dream. The metal moved as he willed, making both himself and the other five people shocked.

"How did you-" Faye began to ask, holding his hand to look it over. He leaned and silenced her with a kiss.

"Be good and I'll tell you later," he winked, then walked ahead, stepping over the corpses to check the blind spots.

The villas here were sparsely placed along the road. Outside the fenced-in villas was a golf course with a few commercial buildings for the residents to use. Not far off was the main highway that led south to the city and a few hundred miles north was another city. At the junction to turn into the community there was a petrol station, convenience store, and a small dinner.

This truly was the best place to hold out for now, he had been an idiot to linger at the resort hoping for his father's return before. Only his father never returned; his yacht was never found again.

His last text from his father that he read last night stated that he had made his way to the facility the Fraizers worked in, which was under strict military guard.

In return, he told his father he had moved to the villa area, had Faye, and they would be with Teddy the next day, they would wait there instead and communicate over the satellite phone Teddy's guards owned.

Faye's gun fired, shooting an elderly female zombie that staggered from a wide open door. Tears were threatening to fall out of her watery eyes.

Yichen grabbed her hand and dragged her to keep moving forward, "someone you knew?"

"She used to come over to play mahjong with Grandma," Faye muttered, not even flinching when Yichen's gun fired to kill the two other zombies stumbling out the door.

"Grandma Jean is fine, my father is with her and they're under strict watch from the military, so don't think too much," Yichen ruffled her frizzy auburn waves, then took the lead as they approached the next villa on the way.

There were just over a hundred villas in the community, all large and imposing and mostly designed by their at least millionaire owners.

The Fraizer's villa was rather discrete, with tree's either side blocking the view of the neighbors, from the top floor you could see the ocean over the walled cliff's edge.

At the door Teddy stood, waving his arms enthusiastically as two guards were on the porch in front of him holding their guns. Seeing familiar faces their stern faces relaxed into a smile, but their guns still remained pointed.

"Sis," Teddy ran down the porch, ignoring the bodyguard's curses, and threw himself into Faye's open arms.

"I missed you," Faye buried her head into her annoyingly taller, but younger, brother, squeezing him with a vengeance.

"Do you know if any of the neighboring villas are empty?" Yichen approached the female guard, Tracey, the one who had the satellite phone. Seeing the sibling's reunion he wanted nothing more than to borrow the phone to check on his father, but he resisted.

"We cleared them both for supplies yesterday and shut the doors afterward," she explained, "but there are survivors in a few of the houses on this street, some with guns, but since we're all neighbors, nobody is hostile currently."

Yichen nodded, "As I said on the phone, there's sixty of us in total, my Villa is on the northern end of the community. For now, I and my men will be staying here, we'll have the others in the two beside us until the whole community is cleared."

"Yes, Mr. Fraizer told us to accommodate you in any way Mr. Wu," the male guard, Howard, spoke up, though seemed a little reluctant.

On the yacht, Yichen had shaved and now looked a few years younger. This guard was in his forties and from the army, he was used to following older men under the chain of command, but now he had been thrust into the care of a rich young 'dandy', with his local superiors nowhere to be found.

Still, he was a soldier through and through, so kept his mouth shut and obeyed when told over the satellite phone to obey this kid's orders.

Barely getting a chance to say hello to the three teenagers playing cludo in the sunroom, Teddy dragged Faye up to the third floor where both their bedrooms and their grandparents and parent's rooms were. All of which were empty save Teddy's.

"Close your eyes," Teddy excitedly ordered her as his hand tensed on the door handle.

Confused, Faye nodded and covered her eyes with her hands.

Teddy dragged her into the center of the room, almost making her trip, then tugged her arm to uncover her eyes.

Seeing the completely remodeled bedroom of her dreams, Faye's knees went out on her as she sunk to the floor and cried like a baby in Teddy's arms.

Just how much love did her grandparents want to shove in her face?

Despite being thousands of miles away, potentially dead at any minute, and restricted in their ability to communicate with her. Despite all of this, her heart filled with an unbearable warmth whilst her brother knelt beside her and cried silently as he held her.