Chapter 116 Bloodlines and Betrayal


    The ragged group was none other than Oliver’s family.


    Oliver’s luck had always been absurdly good. Even after Theresa screwed him over-getting him hospitalized and confiscating his phone and ID-he was still unbelievably fortunate. The people who loved him most, his parents, Howard and L, managed to find him against all odds.


    They found Oliver just as the zombie virus broke out in full force. Howard immediately sensed that something was wrong. Without hesitation, he slung Oliver’s unconscious body over his back, grabbed L, and helped the hospitalized Elizabeth to her feet. Their luck was downright uncanny-somehow, they managed to flee into the hospital’s traditional medicine ward. They barricaded the heavy doors and refused to open them for anyone, no matter how desperately people screamed for help. Miraculously, they survived the brutal early days of the apocalypse, sealed inside that room.


    Strangely enough, their bizarre survival habits helped. Living off dried herbs and foraged roots like desperate squirrels, they nursed Oliver back from the brink of brain damage. His miraculous recovery was nothing short of absurd-herbs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and yet they worked.


    They missed the first wave of official rescues, but ended up running into a scavenger team out looking for supplies.


    Clinging to the group like leeches, the family managed to tag along and eventually made their way- through countless detours-to K1 Camp.


    Fortune seemed to have a sick fondness for them.


    But life without Theresa was a brutal education. With no guidance, no protection, and no real n, they starved for weeks. Meals consisted of crushed herbs. Drinking water came from a broken window where they caught rain in rusty pans. Since doomsday began, they hadn’t had a single proper meal.


    They limped across the wastnd with no one to shield them. All bore scars. All wore filth. Howard’s leg snapped and never healed right-he became a cripple. Once at the camp, without Theresa’s connections, they were shoved into the slums. Howard and Elizabeth were useless. Olivery in the tent all day, eating more than anyone else, doing nothing butining. The only one earning rations was L.


    Now, Oliver’s health had returned-and his attitude took a cruel turn. With icy rity, he announced he was done with his family. He would take his mother and leave, severing all ties with the “useless baggage” that was Howard and Elizabeth.


    “You can’t do this to us, Oliver!” Howard cried, desperation raw in his voice. “Didn’t you see what we did for you?”


    “I worked myself into the ground in the city just to give you a better life!” he shouted. “I married another woman and took all the crap that came with it. Did you forget all that? We’re your flesh and blood! You can’t throw us away like this!”


    “Flesh and blood? Screw that!” Oliver roared, kicking his father and grandmother. “If it weren’t for you two screw-ups, I wouldn’t be living like this! Before the apocalypse, you couldn’t even get me a house! I lost my wife, she aborted our kid because I was too poor! All because of you two losers! You think you’re family?


    You’re trash!”


    His boots mmed into their bodies with ruthless precision. Elizabeth curled into a ball, her frail frame no match for his rage. Malnourished and riddled with disease, she coughed up a mouthful of blood.


    Howard lunged toward her, screaming, “Mom! Mom! Oliver, you killed your grandmother!”


    But Oliver’s eyes held no remorse-only twisted satisfaction. “Then she deserved it! One less burden to carry. Worthless old hag.”


    Howard froze. Something inside him shattered. “You… you b*stard! I’ll kill you!”


    “You? You pathetic old man?” Oliver sneered. He raised his boot and stomped on Howard’s head again and again. Blood sshed across the dirt. Teeth scattered like broken ss.


    Just as Howardy gasping on the floor, a voice rang out, “Mr. Keaton ising!”


    Oliver’s face soured with irritation. He delivered one final kick, sending his father sprawling across the floor, then yanked his mother to her feet and stormed off.


    Behind them, Howard and Elizabethy in a crimson pool, barely alive, their cries weak but burning with rage.


    “You b*stard! I’m your father! I’m your d*mn father!”


    Howard’s heart broke beneath the weight of his regrets.


    How could he have raised such a monster?


    He had sacrificed everything for Oliver. Carried him through a city, of the dead. Given him everything.


    And now that monster had thrown him away like rotten meat.


    Oliver wasn’t just ungrateful. He was something else.


    Something inhuman.


    And in that moment, Howard thought of Theresa.


    If only she had been there.


    Yes, she had been a wild one, rebellious to the bone, but she had a heart-one that was fierce and loyal.


    Howard hade from a remote vige-a poor boy with big dreams who had wed his way into city life. He had married Natalie Pierce, Theresa’s mother, for stability. Before her, though, he’d already been married once in the vige and had a son: Oliver.


    He’d rarelye home after Theresa was born. Natalie neverined, but Theresa? Even as a child, she screamed at him like a storm. When Elizabeth finally joined them in the city and started bullying Natalie, five-year-old Theresa leapt to her mother’s defense like a feral cub, biting Elizabeth so hard she drew blood and wouldn’t let go.