Chapter 268

“A man... and someone important...” Chloe Clark looked at Emily Ward twice, then once more, and stopped there.

Magnus Specter’s heart gave a hard jolt. A name flashed through his mind. His face changed on the spot. He grabbed Chloe Clark by the arm at once.

“Chloe. Inside. Now.”

Emily Ward had already noticed those two looks Chloe threw her way. It felt odd. Still, she didn’t think too deep on it. She only thought Chloe was still blaming herself over what happened the night before last. But the second she saw Magnus pulling Chloe toward the room, Emily moved on instinct and caught Chloe’s other arm.

“What are you doing?” Emily frowned. “What can’t be said here? Why hide it from us?”

With Emily holding her, Chloe didn’t dare move again.

Just like Magnus had guessed, the man they were talking about was Kevin Ward. He claimed he was Emily Ward’s blood brother.

The reason Chloe hadn’t dared say it in front of Emily was simple. That young bastard Kevin Ward was arrogant to the bone. He had clashed with two female members outside. Then, after hearing they were from the Ice Regiment, he started shouting like he owned the world. Said he had to come along. Said his sister was the regiment commander. Said once he found her, he’d have her personally hand those two women over to him as a reward so he could torment them every single day.

The way he said it was enough to make a person sick.

Chloe had wanted to put a bullet through his head right there.

But the moment she heard he was Emily’s younger brother, she didn’t dare act rashly. So she rushed back to discuss it with Magnus first.

The Ice Regiment did not take men.

Much less a man like Kevin Ward.

If that thing entered the regiment, there would be no peace left in it. But no matter what, he was still Emily’s own brother.

That was why Chloe had not wanted to tell Emily directly. She meant to report to Magnus and let him decide.

Magnus’s face kept shifting, dark and colder by turns.

If it really was Kevin Ward, then hiding it too hard from Emily now would only stir her suspicion.

No one knew better than Magnus how far Emily doted on that little brother of hers. In his previous life, he had learned it the hard way. Yes, in the end, she had killed Kevin with her own hands. But before that, Emily had always hoped her brother would change, hoped he would turn back, hoped he—

Hope my ass.

The moment Magnus remembered Sarah Franklin killing herself to protect her own innocence, his fist clenched so hard the bones cracked. Right then and there, he wanted nothing more than to go blow that little beast’s head off.

Damn it all.

He had lived a whole second life, and that bastard still got to breathe this long. Otherwise, how the hell would that thing have survived long enough to see the second descent of the red light?

Not knowing was one thing. But now that he knew, the more Magnus thought about it, the more the fire in his chest roared. Letting that animal live one more second made him hate his own weakness.

He dragged Chloe by the arm and strode down from the vehicle.

As he walked, he said in a hard voice, “Get me a hundred female members with Metal Crystal abilities. Right now. I’m going to—”

“Xiaofan! What are you going to do?”

Emily’s mind was quick. She caught the problem at once. Her eyes sharpened as she stared at the two of them.

“You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you? What is it? Who is that man? Do I know him?”

“You don’t know him.” Magnus still had anger boiling inside him. In the last life, it took your brother doing something fouler than a beast before you finally woke up. And what good did that do? Hell!

“I don’t know him?”

“Yes! You don’t know him. He’s one filthy beast from our old men’s dorm. I’ve wanted to kill that bastard for a long damn time! You don’t know him, so don’t stop me...”

“And you brought this many people...” Chloe Clark started, then cut herself off.

Magnus Specter stopped short. He turned and looked at her, puzzled for half a breath, then he caught it.

At once he said, “Forget it. Just Chloe Clark and me. The rest of you stay here and wait. Nobody goes out. Nobody.”

“Xiaofan!” Emily Ward called out at once. “You two are hiding something from us. That’s not right. Xiaofan, say it clearly. What the hell is going on?”

The uglier Magnus Specter’s face got, the colder Emily Ward’s heart turned.

That bad feeling in her chest spread fast, like ice water running through her bones.

She had already thought of her brother.

But it felt impossible.

Magnus Specter didn’t even know her brother. How could he possibly—

No.

Wrong.

He did know him.

Emily Ward suddenly remembered what Magnus Specter had told her five hours before the apocalypse, those strange words that had left her rattled to the core.

“And your bastard brother, Kevin Ward! He disappeared two years ago because he was hooked on banned drugs. Am I right?”

Those words still rang in her ears.

That had been the thing that shocked her most back then. Even now, Emily Ward still had no idea how Magnus Specter knew Kevin Ward.

After the apocalypse, she had asked him about it more than once.

Every single time, the moment she brought up Kevin Ward, Magnus Specter’s face went dark, murderous, like he wanted to cut someone down on the spot.

And now, seeing that same look on him again, and thinking of how Chloe Clark had looked at her twice just now, wanting to speak but holding it back, Emily Ward’s fingers began to shake.

One hand clutched hard at Chloe Clark’s sleeve.

The other lifted, trembling, and pointed at Chloe Clark’s face.

“Chloe Clark...” Emily Ward’s voice shook badly. “Tell me the truth. Is it... is it my brother Kevin Ward? Is it... him?”

Chloe Clark’s face turned ugly at once.

She didn’t dare answer.

She quickly turned to look at Magnus Specter instead.

That one look was enough.

Emily Ward understood everything.

She didn’t know where the strength came from, but all at once she shoved Magnus Specter hard and roared, “Magnus Specter! Tell me right now! Are you going to kill my brother? Say it!”

“Yes!” Magnus Specter pointed at her, eyes bloodshot, and bellowed back, “I’m going to kill him! So what? Don’t you know what kind of thing your brother is?”

Emily Ward shouted back, voice sharp and broken, “What kind of thing is my brother? Do you even know him? My brother, he...”

She stopped there.

She didn’t know how to finish.

What kind of thing was Kevin Ward?

No matter how Magnus Specter had come to know her brother, Emily Ward herself knew Kevin Ward’s rotten nature better than anyone. She was his sister. No one knew it clearer.

Drinking, fighting, harassing girls—those were already enough for normal people to call a man scum.

But on Kevin Ward, those things were small trash beside a mountain of filth.

As for drink, he didn’t touch a drop.

He took drugs.

As for fighting, he rarely fought people face to face.

He robbed with a knife.

As for harassing girls...

He had even dared put his hands on his own blood sister.

When he was high and out of his mind, any woman was fair game to him, no matter her age. He would force himself on them, then take pictures to threaten them, squeeze them for money, bleed them dry.

And he had one more taste.

A special one.

Back in the old world, all the grime and rot buried under society’s bright face—it was like Kevin Ward had been born out of that darkness.

“No matter what!” Emily Ward’s eyes were red as she screamed at Magnus Specter, “I’m warning you, Magnus Specter—if you dare touch one hair on my brother’s head, I...”

Her chest heaved. Her eyes looked ready to split.

“I swear it! I will kill you with my own hands!”

The door to the RV living area was open.

Inside, women stood packed together.

Outside, more were listening.

Dozens of female team members heard every word.

And when they heard Emily Ward say that herself, with their own ears, they all froze, stunned stupid.

Magnus Specter too.

The moment he heard those words come out of Emily Ward’s mouth, he went still as stone, rooted to the spot, staring blankly.