Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



"Want to tell me how you know that name?" came the voice again, this time accompanied by the sound of a gun's safety being released.

"Want to tell me where Hubby is? I don't want one of my men to shoot him by accident. Then again, if you are there then—" I paused as I looked down the opposite end of the hall and the direction that we just came from. "Then he must have been following us since we got on this floor," I concluded as I heard footsteps echoing down the corridor behind us.

"Ah, there he is," I said.  I will fully admit that all I wanted to do was rush forward and fling my arms around Hua Chan Juan and never let her go.  I needed to apologize for not believing her when it came to Colin and even more so for the fact that I lead to her death. If I hadn't told Colin what she had said about not trusting him, he never would have targeted her in the first place.

Closing my eyes as visions of her and her husband's death played in my mind. I thanked God that I was brought back to rectify all the wrongs that I did.

"And how do you know about me?" Came a low baritone voice from the opposite end as Huan Chan Juan.

"Like I told your wife, you wouldn't believe me even if I told you. So why waste my breath?" I smirked.  Huang Tian Kuo was one of those men that I always wanted to have in my past lives and thought that I had with Colin. He was so overprotective of Hua Chan Juan that he drove her insane more often than not, but she had confessed one night that she secretly loved it. He wouldn't normally speak to a woman, let alone acknowledge her existence. I was the exception simply because I was Hua Chan Juan's best friend and also the commander of the compound.

I still remember their easy touching, their closeness, and how she was just as protective as him when it came to the world outside.

'You can have that too,' came the gruff voice inside my head.

'I don't think that I will be that lucky. And I don't think that I even deserve it,' I confessed in a quiet voice, all joking aside. It was like my body craved a relationship, almost like I had a huge gaping hole inside of me that was slowly bleeding out and killing me. But after what I helped Colin do, I didn't deserve happiness.

I forgot that sometimes with the boys around. They made me want things that I shouldn't want. They make me crave their touch in a way that I never had before. My very essence was calling to them, but I couldn't do it.

I didn't deserve happiness for what I did to my best friends.

"If you don't want to be killed, then you might want to offer some type of explanation," Huang Tian Kuo said as he came into sight.  My men were not happy with his response, but I could do little more than chuckle.

"Don't you need your wife's permission for that?"

Silence met my words. "Fine," I said, halfway between a chuckle and a groan. "I was your best friend in our past life and we saved each other's lives for almost 10 years before you two were killed."

"You're right, I don't believe you," snapped Hua Chan Juan.

"Always the realist. Fine, the truth is we are here to collect supplies before going on our way. Are you going to stand in our way or let us through?" I asked, giving them the chance at the truth in case they were reborn themselves.  It's not like they died a pleasant death after all.

"I'll choose the first option," growled Huang Tian Kuo, raising his gun in response to my words.

Racking my brain on how to get out of this without anyone dying, I quickly improvised. "General Wang Chao is downstairs waiting for us.  Surely you won't kill any of his men," I said, knowing that they would recognize Wang Chao.  I might not have known who the man was before I met him, but Huang Tian Kuo and Hua Chan Juan lived and breathed the military since they were teenagers.

"General Wang Chao?" Hua Chan Juan said as she held up a hand to stop Huang Tian Kuo.

"Yes," came the extremely pissed-off voice of Wang Chao from even further down the hall than Huang Tian Kuo, his men marching in perfect formation behind him.

His entrance seemed to suck the very air out of the hallway and silence reigned.

"Is there a reason why you are holding a gun to my people?" Wang Chao snapped. I could almost see how he would have looked in uniform, how imposing he would have been.  Even I wanted to salute and that had never happened before.

"Sorry, Sir," said Huang Tian Kuo returning his gun to the holster at his side.  As soon as he stood down, Hua Chan Juan stepped out from around the corner and I laid eyes on her for the first time in 2 years.  She looked so young, like a blossom that had just started blooming. In my past life, she looked a lot older, harsher, and more mature, but then again, I had met her three years into the apocalypse and a lot could have happened in that time.

Wang Chao didn't reply to Huang Tian Kuo and simply brushed by him as if he wasn't there.  I was surprised to see the two of them side by side even for a brief second.

While I had always held Huang Tian Kuo as the epitome of masculinity, so big and strong that it never occurred to me how much smaller he was than Wang Chao.

Wang Chao's stride ate up the distance between us and he reached out to cup my cheek in the palm of his hand.  "Are you ok?" he asked out loud for those around us to hear. 'I could feel your pain, little girl. Tell me what I can do to make it better,' he said inside my head. I relaxed into him, not realizing just how much I needed him beside me at this moment.

Coming face to face with my past was leaving me more weak and vulnerable than I would like to be in the middle of a public space. Taking the last step, I buried my nose in his chest and breathed in his scent until I felt more composed.

Pulling myself together, my shields back up, I retreated a step and looked up at the man. "Right as rain," I said, responding to the part that everyone could hear.

'Nothing Wang Zi Mo did was your fault, you have to know that, right?' he pleaded in a soft voice. He bent forward to be able to look me in the eyes.  'Do not take the weight of what he did onto your own shoulders. Think of this as a fresh start, a new chance at making friends. Or don't,' he continued, trying to make me see reason.

He was right, blasted man. I could not be held responsible for what Colin did, I didn't want him to do it nor was I aware of it at the time.  It was not until Colin let it slip did I even realize what was going on. 

Straightening up my back, I nodded at his words.  This was my chance to start fresh, with nothing hanging between us.  We had been friends once, and we could do it again.  And even if we didn't become friends, we could bring them into our group and help them where we could.

I froze as that thought crossed my mind. I didn't want to help people in this lifetime, I wanted to live my own life… but was I really going to sacrifice my only two friends in the past for potential heartache in the future?

Frankly, I didn't know. I would take it one day at a time and go from there.

Wang Chao took a step back of his own as he felt me calm down. Sweeping his arm to the side, he invited me to continue on my journey to the food court. Smiling, I walked forward with him at my side and his arm wrapped around my waist.

Our two teams followed us, leaving Huang Tian Kuo and Hua Chan Juan to decide if they wanted to follow us or go out on their own. Either way, I knew that they would have their own path to follow and it was not my place to interfere with their fate.

I just hoped that there were no more traps between here and the food court.  Knowing these two though, I could leave nothing to chance.

"Hey! Hua Chen Juan," I yelled behind me, refusing to turn around and look back. "You don't have any more surprises for us up ahead, do you?"

I heard a small yelp as Hua Chan Juan realized that they did indeed have a few more ambushes planned for the unsuspecting.  Rolling my eyes, I came to a stop, pulling Wang Chao to a halt beside me.  "Better let her go first," I advised, not willing to take any chances.

Just because I remembered our friendship didn't mean that she did.