Chapter 270
Five off-road trucks, three regular passenger buses, two infantry fighting vehicles, and four cargo trucks piled high with grain and vegetables.
The small convoy rolled slowly into the square before Ironvale County Railway Station.
Magnus Specter sat in the lead vehicle, the one Chloe Clark was driving. Emily Ward had stayed close to him the whole way, sitting in the back. Sophia Reid was on one side of her, Charlotte Renard on the other. Liana Jabbar, Lana Stewart, and the others had remained behind at the temporary base.
“It’s just ahead. They...”
Up front sat a huge meteor shell, hollowed out like a den.
Through the front windshield, Magnus saw a man crawl out from inside it. The guy was covered in blood from head to toe. He clutched a plastic bag in both hands, pulling it over his mouth, then jogged crookedly toward the vehicle and slammed his foot hard against the door.
“Let him in?” Chloe turned her head and glanced at Magnus.
Emily instantly leaned forward half out of her seat, tense as a drawn bow. But one look told her that man wasn’t Kevin. The light in her eyes died at once. She sank back again, and the tears she’d barely held down started spilling all over.
The moment she learned there was news of her family, she stopped being the commander of Ice Regiment.
She became just a woman again. A very ordinary woman. A woman who loved her little brother and cried too easily when it hurt.
Magnus was in no mood to speak. His chest felt heavy, dull as a stone.
Outside, the man with the plastic bag over his mouth kicked the door a few more times with all he had. Then maybe his strength gave out. He cursed under his breath, turned, and ran back toward the meteor in a hurry.
The meteor shell had around ten openings broken into it. At the top and along the sides, a giant sparrow crouched at each crack, stabbing its beak inward. At the very bottom of one opening was a small hole. After the man crawled through that hole, he bent over and sucked in air in big ragged gulps, then started cursing.
“Kevin! What kind of damned sister is that of yours? Why the hell didn’t she open the door for me? Damn it!”
Chloe had already reported on the way back. Kevin Ward had originally been on one of Ice Regiment’s sleeper buses. But later he kept staring at the women on board, eyes wandering where they shouldn’t, even putting his hands on them. The bus captain had thrown him off. Now he was hiding in the meteor shell with six companions.
“Quit your damn yapping,” Kevin said as he stood up inside the shell and stretched lazily, like he hadn’t a care in the world. Then he dropped down by the lower opening, peered outside, and shouted, “Sis! It’s me, Kevin! Why ain’t you coming over? What, you putting on airs now?”
Everything around them had been dead quiet.
Then Emily heard that voice.
Her own brother’s voice.
She shot to her feet on instinct and cracked her head against the roof of the vehicle. The hit made her vision swim for a second, but she didn’t care. In the next breath she was already moving to get out.
It was real.
It really was Kevin.
“Emily! Don’t rush! Use the Crystal first!” Charlotte quickly shoved a Super Fire Crystal into her hand.
Emily grabbed it, crushed it in her palm, and said in a shaking voice, “Let me out first. Hurry!”
Magnus was in the front passenger seat. He got out a step ahead of her after activating the Super Fire Crystal. Emily jumped down from the vehicle right after him, then whipped around and glared at him.
“You are not coming over!”
Magnus stopped where he was and did not move.
He watched Emily charge to the meteor shell. The giant sparrows perched along the shell burst up in a flurry, several of them startled into flight by her sudden rush.
She bent low, squeezed into the shell through the opening, and then her sobbing broke out from inside.
“Kevin! It really is you! Kevin! Where have you been these last two years? Your sister really...”
So it really was that bastard.
Magnus stood there in silence, staring at the meteor shell. More than once, he had to force down the urge to yank out his gun and storm over there.
Better wait and see how things had gone on Chloe’s side first.
He let out a long breath, turned, and walked back toward the bus.
When he climbed aboard, Chloe and several of the girls had already risen nervously to their feet.
This was only an ordinary passenger bus. None of the women had helmets on. More than sixty people packed the whole bus, and every last one of them had their hair tied in ponytails, neat and uniform, each ponytail fastened with a cartoon-pattern hair tie.
None of them understood what their captain was up to.
Not just this one bus. Of the three seated buses that came in today, more than two hundred people total, every female member was dressed the same way.
Magnus Specter gave them a rough sweep with his eyes. Dozens of big eyes were fixed on him, not blinking. Margaret Fuller stepped up to his side and spoke under her breath, “Xiaofan, I brought all the young pretty ones from our regiment. They’re dressed just the way you asked.”
He gave a small nod.
“Just act normal,” Magnus said flatly. “No need to force anything.”
Then he turned and got off the bus, heading over to the other two vehicles to give them a look as well.
Inside the hollow shell of the meteor, Emily Ward had only just exchanged a few hurried words with her younger brother before she grabbed Kevin Ward by the arm.
“Come on, Xiaowei. Come with your sister. I’ll take you back with me. From now on...” Her throat tightened. Her eyes went red. “From now on, I’ll make sure you live well. I swear it.”
“Sis.”
Kevin Ward did not move.
He stood there like a stake hammered into the ground, eyes hard.
“You just plan to take me alone?”
Emily froze. Only then did she look past him and see the other five men inside the meteor shell. They had all gotten to their feet. One by one they stared at her with rough, ugly faces, full of hostility.
Emily steadied herself. Her gaze slid across them, one face after another, and when she spoke her voice was calm, almost too calm.
“Thank you. Thank you for looking after Xiaowei these days. We brought some food this time, and some Crystal too. Later, I’ll have my people bring it over to you. Consider it my thanks.”
“Sis! That’s not how you do things!”
Kevin shook his arm hard and threw off her hand. Anger rose straight onto his face.
“Sis, I’m asking you one thing. They all said you’re the leader of that what-was-it-called regiment. Ice Regiment, right?” He stared at her, pressing every word out through his teeth. “Tell me straight. Is it true or not?”
“I am the captain,” Emily said at once. “I can look after you. Xiaowei, come. Come with me now.”
She reached for his arm again.
Kevin shook her off again, even harder.
“So you are the captain.” His eyes narrowed. “Then tell me this, sis. This captain of yours—does what you say count in your regiment, or not?”
“Xiaowei...”
By then, Emily already understood what he meant. Her fingers went cold. Hesitation flashed across her face.
“Don’t give me that useless crap!” Kevin snapped. “Answer me! I’m asking one sentence. Is that so damn hard? You tell me right now—when you speak in your regiment, does it count or not?”
“I... as your sister...”
“What ‘as your sister’? What are you talking about?”
Kevin stepped forward and shoved her in the shoulder.
The force made Emily stagger half a step.
“You don’t understand human speech or what?” he barked. “I’m asking you right now. In your regiment, do you call the shots, or don’t you? If you do, then take all of us brothers with you today!” His face turned savage, voice rising. “If you can’t even decide that much, then I’d rather stay here and enjoy myself than go anywhere with you! Fuck!”
“Xiaowei! I’m your sister! Is that how you talk to your own sister?”
Two years apart. Emily had already been patient beyond measure today. But patience had bone and flesh too. She could not let him shove her around and curse at her in front of strangers like this.
“How do I talk? Huh? How do I talk? How do I talk?”
Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.
The sound rang without stopping.
Each time he shouted the words, Kevin slapped himself once across the face, hard and flat, with no mercy at all. One slap after another. More than a dozen in a row. By the end, the corner of his mouth had split and blood was already showing.
Emily’s heart clenched so hard it nearly stopped.
She rushed forward and grabbed both his arms. “Xiaowei! What are you doing? Are you losing your mind again? When Mom was dying, she told me to take good care of you. You—”
“Emily Ward!”
Kevin’s eyes were bloodshot. The veins on his neck stood out like cords. He drove each word out like a blade.
“You still got the damn face to bring up Mom? Wasn’t she pissed to death by you, alive and breathing? I haven’t even settled the score with you for costing me my own mother, and you still dare bring her up in front of me?”
Every sentence came with another shove to Emily’s shoulder.
One shove.
Then another.
Then another.
He kept driving her back step by step until her back hit the inner wall of the meteor shell with a dull thud.
Then he jabbed a finger right at the tip of her nose and roared, spit flying with the words,
“Emily Ward, I’m telling you this—if you weren’t my blood sister today, I’d have already taken you by force! You believe that or not?”