Through the haze of unconsciousness, Aiden could feel his body shifting. More details than that were impossible to parse, since the world around him lacked clarity in any regard. He felt motion, and that was about it.

When he finally came to, he laid on a cot with a woolen blanket covering him. He didn’t wait for someone to come over to him before throwing off the scratchy blanket and rising from his position on the bed.

Once up, he looked around.

The moonlight peering through the window illuminated a grim scene. Wherever he’d been taken looked like an emergency response area at a hospital after a massive tragedy.

All the inhabitants were in different states of critical conditions.

Gauze bandages stained with copious amounts of blood as the wounds of those suffering didn’t heal from whatever injury they’d sustained. Many lacked limbs. Those unfortunate souls who remained conscious groaned and begged for him to take away their pain and end their suffering.

But the oddest thing he found was the presence of non-humans amongst the recovery area.

As curious as it made him, his curiosity was not enough for him to start a ruckus while all in attendance were trying to heal. Then, while gritting his teeth, Aiden made his way around the room, fearfully checking for Aunt Rachel. If there was this big of a congregation of people, then if she were in dire straits, she’d probably have been brought it.

He hoped he didn’t find her, then felt bad for each and every sigh of relief he let out. Each time he saw someone that remotely looked like her from a distance, his heart sank into his chest. And given the variety and number of occupants, he wasn’t sure how much his heart would be able to handle by the time he was done.

Once he finished verifying Aunt Rachel was, in fact, not among the injured, he passed through a door. On the other side, many people buzzed around frantically.

The noise hit him like a physical force.

“I need a healer!”

“Becka’s out! Find some medicine!”

“There isn’t any, or I wouldn’t be asking for a healer!”

The buzzing hubbub of sound only increased in volume and frequency the longer he stood there, aggravating the headache. After several long seconds of standing there absorbing the ambience, his right eye began to twitch.

But, despite the whirlwind of action going on around him, Aiden focused and screened all the people working tirelessly while ignoring the countless passing looks of concern.

He didn’t recognize anybody, making his stomach coil in both frustration and worry.

“Where is she?” he muttered to nobody in particular. Reasonably, the likelihood of her being here was always low, but that didn’t mean he didn’t wish things could’ve been simple. “Where could she be?”

“Excuse me, sir,” a feminine voice called out to him, one he didn’t recognize.

Aiden turned to face the person who’d called to him to find a girl, likely no older than her early teens, looking at him with weary eyes.

“Yes?”

She pointed toward the door he’d come from. “I don’t think you should be up and walking around. When you were brought in, you were really injured.”

“Was I?” Aiden looked down at himself, double checking to see if there were any injuries he should be concerned about. Not finding anything of note, he looked at the girl and shrugged. “Nothing to worry about now, but thank you for your concern. I’ll be okay.”

Again, she pointed toward the door and puffed up her cheeks. “I really think you should go back to laying down until one of the healers can see you. My brother Brandon dragged you in from the danger zone earlier. He said he thought he was carrying an already dead person! That’s not normal!”

“I’m pretty sturdy and heal really fast,” Aiden said, shrugging again. They stood there for a few moments, her still pointing toward the door and him unsure of how to tell her to go away. So he attempted humor. “If you thought I looked bad, you should’ve seen the other guy.”

“Do you see where we are? How is that even remotely funny?!”

She took a deep breath and looked around, seeming to beg to each passing person with her eyes to back her up. But they all were in their own little worlds as they sped about with their designated tasks. Groaning, she looked him up and down.

“Tasteless jokes aside, you do look fine now,” she said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes, “but I’ll have to let someone know that you’re up and walking around if you’re not going to go back to laying in your bed.”

“I’m not laying back down, so tell whoever you have to,” he said, returning to his search for Aunt Rachel without further concern for the girl. He waved as he turned away. “Good luck with things here, and tell your brother that I said thanks.”

He walked a whole three steps to the front door, following the exit signs, before he stopped. She might know a thing or two about the people who survived after he’d been taken to Midrath, which meant she might have some clue as to where Aunt Rachel went.

However, she was already gone when he turned around, so he turned to the nearest busily bustling worker bee and waved them down instead.

The first person ignored him, and so too did the second. After the third, he gave up on trying to interrupt operations in the impromptu hospital and left out the front door.

While he might be able to find something about Aunt Rachel from some of them, he might not. Plus, it’s not like he would be going far. He just wanted a breath of fresh air.

When he stepped outside, he found several others loitering about. Their gazes were affixed to one of three things: a red light beaming in the sky, the hospital, or each other.

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Any others in the area loitered, doing nothing more than staring aimlessly into space while strewn about in disarray against or near the building. Many were injured, but none were injured to the degree of those within the infirmary he’d just left.

Aiden took enough steps away from the building to be able to observe it, and the whole thing looked like it’d take a beating from King Kong. Despite that, it didn’t look like it was going to collapse anytime soon.

Unlike many of the other buildings that lay in rubble in the vicinity, this one actually held up enough to support the emergency response operations they’d set up inside.

Good for them.

What caught his attention more than the state of the building was the glowing red beam of light shooting a clear beacon into the clouds. No matter what angle he looked at it from, it didn’t shift its orientation in the sky.

Finding the closest stressed out person with a clear and conscious mind taking a break, he approached, pointing toward the red beam. “What’s that?”

The woman he approached looked concerned for his health. Her eyes instantly snapped to and focused on the white band around his wrist reminiscent of an in-patient tag.

He ripped it free and repeated his question. “Trust me, I’m fine. Please, I really need to know what that is.”

Pursed lips and reluctant brows regarded him for a long moment, but then the woman let out a sigh. “Someone defeated one of the incredibly powerful third rank territory owners. Whoever it was, they haven’t claimed it, so the territory is up for grabs. It’s been a bloodbath over there all day,” she said, waving toward the building he’d just come out of, “and a lot of innocents are getting caught up in the chaos.”

“Sorry, I’m not familiar with the territory business. Could you elaborate?”

She looked at him weirdly. “How do you not know about the territories? They’ve been the primary method of survival for months now.” Her concern turned to a hint of fear and lots of skepticism, causing her to shy away. For what reason, he couldn’t parse, but she regarded him far colder now, her tone demanding and unfriendly. “Who are you?”

“Aiden Pearce. I used to live in the area before the world went crazy and thought monsters were the next cool thing. Nice to meet you,” he said, holding out a hand for her to shake.

“Abigail Watts, but most people call me Abby.” She took his hand and shook it, still looking concerned. “How is it you don’t know about the territories?”

“I’m new to the area.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

“But you just said you’re from here…”

Aiden sighed and met her gaze, pointing one hand toward the impromptu hospital and the other toward the red light in the sky. “Look, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Abby, so let’s skip that part and move to the part where we figure out if I can somehow stop more people from getting hurt. From the look I just had and all the people out here, things aren’t getting any better the longer we wait to get to the point.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, looking him up and down repeatedly. “Hmm, you seem very confident in being able to do something if I were to tell you.”

Aiden let the silence hang between them, simply waiting for her to make up her mind.

“Fine.” She nodded at him, and he grinned. “Yeah, fine. What harm could come of telling you that hasn’t happened already?”

“True enough.” He nodded and took the space next to her, crossing his arms and listening to her explanation while never looking away from the red light, lest it suddenly disappear.

“We,” she started, thumbing toward the building, “have gotten in contact with pretty much every group, community, coalition—anybody we could that survived The Surge.” She turned to meet his eyes, pursing her lips. “Sorry, but what you’re telling me doesn’t make sense. It’s taking me a second to process the fact you don’t know what territories are but think you might be worth a damn to anybody.”

“Abby, I’m sure we just figured this out. I’m a random stranger who may or may not be able to save a lot of people. Trust me on that,” he said, holding up a hand and simultaneously casting Ice Walls in rapid succession to box them in.

The ice of the wall shifted in ten different places on each surface, hardening, opening up windows for them to see through, and even shooting spikes from one wall to the other, only for them to merge back into ice.

He expected fear to fill her gaze, but what he found when he looked into her eyes was curiosity, interest, and hope. “That… was impressive.”

The walls came down from around them, revealing a small crowd and many onlookers.

He waved them away. “Nothing to see here, folks.” Once they settled down and returned to where they were or to what they were doing, mostly nothing, after his display, he turned to Abby. “So?”

“Sorry, I’m being so annoying. It’s just—you came from the infirmary, that’s clear enough. I wouldn’t want you to run off and get yourself killed after being dragged in here. People don’t get tagged if they expect to live,” she explained, letting out a shuddery breath. “Well, you seem human enough, and if you aren’t, not much I can do anyway.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” he said, pinching his skin. It didn’t hurt at all, no matter how hard he tried. Shrugging, he then placed his hand over his heart. “Scout’s honor, I am human—well, for the most part. I really used to live not too far from here.”

His statement did nothing to appease her skeptic brow’s raised position. “That doesn’t make me feel any better about you potentially being a very intelligent monster or a humanoid from another world.”

“Is that what you’re concerned about?” he asked, shrugging. “It’s hard to tell anymore where the lines of humans, monsters, and others are, because I’ve killed enough monsters to be more terrifying than the actual monsters. That doesn’t change the fact I’m human.” He pointed in the direction of Aunt Rachel’s house. “Grew up that way with the person I’m looking for right now.”

“Woah, woah. Slow down there,” she said, crossing her arms and huffing a deep breath. “That’s a lot to take in… Also, do you do this cryptic thing often? What did you mean by what you just said?”

“I made it pretty clear.” He cocked his head to the side. “Did I not?”

Apex Predator oozed out of him slowly, just a minute amount caressing against her. The instant she felt the aura was obvious. Her whole body froze, and her pupils dilated.

He killed the aura and pursed his lips. “See?”

“Monster.”

“Not quite, no. Are you gonna be okay?” he asked, watching as she hugged herself tighter.

“S-sorry, yeah. I-I’m fine,” she said, looking away as she uncrossed her arms to rub her eyes. “Th-that was something.”

“The funny thing is that was only one percent of Apex Predator’s actual aura.” Her wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights look made him grin. “Trust me, the monsters are the only ones with anything to fear here. I probably came in looking like a hot mess because one of my powers is a bit cannibalistic.”

She shook out her hands and eyed him. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s strong enough to be worth the price.” Leyla’s battle with Veletya came to mind. Until Leyla had used the Vorpal Blade, they’d been evenly matched. Power with a costly price, one he’d likely pay many times over to see his vision through to its end.

Abby turned back to the red beam of light. “Can you really help the people there?”

“I can.”

The door he’d come out of squealed open. “Abby, break’s up! We need you in here, now!”

“Ah, damn. I lost track of time,” she said, looking between him and the door. “I-I need to go now.”

Without further preamble, she turned and rushed to the door, throwing a pensive yet curious gaze back his way over her shoulder before disappearing into the building.

Aiden couldn’t blame her. With all that he’d killed in Midrath, Apex Predator had blossomed to be the penultimate intimidation tactic, even against the strongest members of Zion and other monsters.

“The woes of being powerful. Who would’ve thought?” he lamented, turning to look toward the red beam in the sky. “Looks like I made a mess of things earlier.” He looked back at the impromptu hospital and wondered if Aunt Rachel was inside, but then he turned back to the red light in the sky. “I need to clean up my mess first.”