Chapter 466: Zoom In

CRASH!

CRACKLE!

Debris fell, and sparks erupted all over the place as Pete and Thiago hurried through the already ruined entrance to the basement.

"Move—move, clear the way—"

Thiago came through sideways, running as fast as he could despite the slight limp on his right foot.

Helena’s full dead weight slung across his shoulders. Her long hair hung loose over his arm.

Thiago was a fairly tall man with broad shoulders. As a former military doctor, he was inclined to maintain his condition even if he wasn’t serving in the military anymore. His collar was drenched with sweat as he hurried over, ignoring the pain in his leg.

Behind him came Pete, half-carrying, half-dragging Chronos. Chronos, who never let anyone see him anything but bored and beautiful, was looking as pale as humanly possible.

"Pods are gone," Pete said, breathless but still trying to calm down.

He carefully unhooked Chronos’s arm from his neck and lay him down on the sofa, secretly soothing him with his pheromones.

"Medical pod, life pods. All of them were torn open. The wiring’s a mess."

"Gone how?" Bryan, who hurriedly came over to help, asked.

"Must be that zerg outside." Sarah quickly commented with a hoarse voice.

It was a reasonable explanation, but Thiago knew that there was no way that Zerg could have done that.

First of all, they caught Helena off guard when they entered the basement. She was mid-motion in her plan. There was no time to do anything else, given how everyone was being monitored by one another.

If the pods got damaged along the way when it transformed into its zerg form, and the chase happened, it should’ve been torn into pieces.

However, based on their assessment, the equipment was systematically dismantled. The parts with important wiring were clearly targeted, so it wouldn’t work at all.

"There are signs of human tampering, not that zerg outside," Thiago grunted, easing Helena down onto the oval table between the two sofas.

Iris helped clear out the items there. The holographic screens above them rippled, parting their feeds around his head.

"Must be that Ethan guy who got Neville," Julius said, annoyed.

Everyone fell silent as they had the same thought.

They didn’t know when or how he got there, but aside from that, zerg outside and Lilianna groaning in pain over here, the only one who got free hands to tamper with anything was that kidnapper, Ethan.

"Fuck!" Sarah cursed, eyes unfocused, "When will this all end!"

Pete arrived beside Chronos and gave him a glass of water.

"Stay with me," He murmured as he poured more concentrated pheromones directly at Chronos’s secondary glands. "You don’t get to die looking like that."

"...rude," Chronos breathed, eyes shut, color coming back on his cheeks.

While everyone was busy doing their own tasks, Sarah adjusted the holographic screen so it wouldn’t hover on top of Helena anymore.

However, when Sarah got a clear look at the live feed, she was stunned. She wasn’t looking at the fight or at the zergs; she was looking at a certain surveillance feed amongst the many.

One of them was a wide-angle shot, a night vision feed of the garden, where Ciel was engaged in a fight with Keres. Meanwhile, Grayson was supporting Ciel. Firing in between to buy time for Ciel to get back on his feet.

And in the bottom corner, tucked into the seam where a load-bearing pillar met the wall, a woman in a designer dress was pressing her hand over her own mouth.

Sarah’s whole body went still. She even leaned a little closer as if that could change anything with the holographic screen.

The figure was small and even a little blurred because the light couldn’t capture most of the things in the corner. There was even dust and debris that was floating around as Ciel and Grayson fought the zerg.

It could have been anyone.

She wished it were just anyone random.

So, she hurriedly tinkered with the controls and zoomed in on that specific feed. She enlarged the feed until it was full screen, even zoomed in on that specific corner.

But the moment the blurred feed sharpened and became clear, she couldn’t deceive herself anymore.

That expensive designer dress that was recently on trend. That custom bag that Sarah personally ordered as a gift for her on her birthday was lying on the ground.

"Mo-...-om." It came out cracked. "Mom."

"Sarah—" Iris heard Sarah and quickly caught her shoulder.

Sarah was trembling, twitching in Iris’s touch.

Iris called out, "Sarah, breathe—Tell—"

"My mother," Sarah said, pointing at the holographic screen. "That’s my mother. That’s—Iris, that’s my mom, she’s there, why is she there, she can’t be—"

Her words tripped over each other, panicked by the second.

"She’s not supposed to be here. She’s not supposed to—" Then, Sarah’s complexion turned deathly pale. "Oh, God. The photo."

"What photo?" Iris just randomly repeated to comfort Sarah, but it just made Sarah’s reactions worse.

"The photo." Sarah’s laugh was a horrible little hiccup. "I sent it. The family chat."

"What do you mean?" Iris hurriedly asked in confusion.

"I secretly took a photo of Lilianna and sent it to the family group chat."

Sarah explained her eyes were unfocused.

"Since Mom and Dad haven’t—they haven’t made up for some reason. I thought, if they just saw her. If they saw that she was doing well, they’d—"

She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, an unconscious mirror of the woman frozen on the screen.

"I just wanted them to reconcile. That’s all. I just wanted them to—"

Sarah couldn’t finish her sentences because she knew that it was her fault. She sent a photo despite sensing the odd atmosphere the moment Lilianna came into the gathering.

That photo didn’t reassure anybody. If anything, it had drawn more concerns, making their mother, Catalina, take a trip to ensure that Lilianna was really here.

Now, Catalina, who didn’t know anything, was stuck in the corner outside the building in the gardens. Albeit inside the barrier, a more terrifying monster was being fought in front of her by Ciel and Grayson.

"Why didn’t Dad stop her?" Sarah’s voice climbed, thin and wet when she realized something. "He always stops her or at least warns her. Why didn’t he—"

Her head lifted and looked around frantically.

"Is Dad here? Is he—is he in the building? Did anyone see my dad, Geron Gringer? Did he come with her? Where is my father—"

"He’s not here," Thiago replied, rising to his feet after stabilizing Helena’s condition. "Miss Sarah, your father is not here. I got a call from him earlier."

Sarah’s breath stuttered, panicking as her eyes wandered back to Catalina on the screen. "Are you sure? Is it really him?"

"I’m sure. He’s also on his way here." Thiago was massaging his temples. "He’s bringing reinforcements."

But Sarah’s expression didn’t change. Because even if Geron came with Catalina, he had military experience to save himself in this predicament. Meanwhile, her mother, alone, couldn’t do anything.

"Could you get her out of there and take her to safety?" Sarah asked in a hopeful tone, looking at each and everyone of them. "Please. P-please."

But anyone who was looking at the holographic screen couldn’t reassure Sarah that they could take Catalina to safety. Because Catalina’s position was really that bad.

Sarah, who had been numb and tired at their helpless situation, instantly understood what their silence meant, and could only watch in terror.

Meanwhile, Lilianna was crying and groaning, but she had already gotten used to the pain all over her body. Then she suddenly heard her sister say something.

If Sarah was miserable because of her, it was because she experienced another level of pain. However, there were no changes for the past few seconds. It was impossible that it was because of her.

Then, Lilianna tried to focus her senses on her ears. Even if it was muffled and a little distorted, she could still hear bits and pieces.

Mom,Dad, and a photo.

Those were the words that had the most painful tone in Sarah’s voice.

Lilianna wanted to ask what was happening, but the pain drowned her voice. It had started as a heat traveling through her spine and then biting into her spinal nerves like it had teeth.

No words could be formed coherently in this kind of pain.

Lilianna lay on the polished ballroom floor with her cheek against her own reflection, her hair fanned out around her. As a former Colonel, she had been shot, burned, broken, but she had never made the sounds she was making now.

If she couldn’t ask with her voice, maybe she could still see what was happening.

Her eyes had already turned inhuman and bloody red. So through the slit of one eye, she could see wonders if pushed to the limits.

With the holographic screen already highlighting Catalina’s position, Lilianna saw her small dark figure persistently hiding its presence in the corner of the building with her hands pressed to her mouth.

That’s mom. Recognition was much faster than Sarah’s. What is she doing here? Why is she trembling? What is happening?