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"But hey, there's still a silver lining—he can be saved," Luke said, voice calm like he was offering so miracle solution.
The truth? Peyton could be saved—if they sohow tracked down the antivirus. And Luke knew exactly who had it: Ashford's daughter. Problem was, he had no clue where she was hiding. So, in reality, Peyton's chances were about as good as winning the lottery without a ticket.
But Luke didn't care. He wasn't saying this out of pity or compassion. No—his motives were far more selfish.
If he could play the role of the noble "sage" who gave Jill a shred of hope about saving her friend, then maybe she'd start seeing him in a better light.
And once you're in soone's good view… well, doors start opening. In his case, the "door" he was aiming for was Jill's pants.
All part of the grand dream—Luke's dream—of soday being surrounded by beautiful won.
Selene, of course, hadn't signed off on his so-called "harem project." In fact, she usually shot him down with a glare sharp enough to cut steel whenever he even hinted at it.
But hey—opinions could change. People could change. Who knows? Maybe in the future she'd co around.
Luke smirked inwardly. Yep. One day.
"What is it?" Jill asked, eyes narrowing at Luke. She already knew the rule: once bitten, a human is finished. There was no cure. No second chance.
"The Anti-Virus," Luke said calmly, like he was reciting the weather report. "It can kill the infection, but only if it's injected before he loses himself completely and turns into one of those… things."
Jill froze for a mont, the tiniest flicker of hope flashing in her eyes.
"What he said is right," Alice admitted, her voice cold and steady. "But the Anti-Virus isn't sothing you're going to stumble across in this city. It was Umbrella's most prized project. They don't just leave it lying around. It's gone—cleared out, hidden, locked away. You'd have more luck digging for gold in a landfill."
She wasn't exaggerating. Alice knew Umbrella. If the outbreak had already reached this level, then every important vial, every prototype, every shred of research would've been moved out or destroyed.
The chance of finding a working dose here? Practically zero. That's why she hadn't even bothered to ntion it until Luke brought it up—because in her eyes, it was nothing but a cruel fantasy.
"Yep, it's difficult to find," Luke admitted with a shrug, his tone far too casual for the situation. "But we can get it… if we wait for the right ti."
The others stared at him with confused faces.
Luke, however, looked perfectly calm. Because in his mind, the plan was already there. Soon, Ashford will call us. If the old man was still alive, he'd be watching the CCTV feeds blanketing the city.
He'd know where his daughter was. And wherever she was… that's where the cure would be. He smirked faintly to himself. The funny thing was—he didn't even fully rember the details.
He only recalled that the girl was trapped in a school. But which one? In a whole city, there wasn't just a single school. Better to wait for Ashford's call instead of running blind.
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Twenty minutes later,
The group stood in front of a half-broken cellphone shop. The neon sign above flickered weakly. They were gathered near the glass front, but instead of doing anything. Instead, every pair of eyes was fixed on Luke.
Because Luke was standing directly in front of a CCTV cara mounted on the corner of the building, waving his arms around like he was guiding traffic—or summoning UFOs.
"Ashford! I know you're seeing —call already!" Luke shouted up at the lens, his voice echoing down the empty street.
The others exchanged looks. Every single one of them was thinking the sa thing: CCTV caras don't even have audio… and probably nobody's alive to watch them anyway.
Alice finally broke the silence, arms folding over her chest. Her brow furrowed as she glanced at Selene. "Is he always like this?"
From her expression, it wasn't a question born of curiosity. It was the kind of question people asked when they were already convinced the answer was "yes."
"Yes. But only sotis," Selene said smoothly, her tone flat as if she were talking about the weather.
"Sotis behaves weirdly?" Jill asked, baffled.
"No," Selene corrected without hesitation. "Sotis behaves normal. Other tis… this."
She gestured lazily toward Luke, who was now clapping twice at the cara like a man trying to train a dog.
Terri, who had been filming the scene for her docuntary, lowered her cara slightly. Her curiosity finally broke through her professionalism. "So what exactly is your relationship with him?"
The question ca out blunt, but honest. Luke wasn't bad-looking, sure, but compared to Selene—who looked like she had stepped out of so gothic dream, elegant and terrifying all at once—it didn't add up in her head.
"Wife," Selene said simply.
The answer landed like a small bomb.
Alice and Jill both turned toward her, eyes going wide almost in perfect sync.
"You're joking…" Jill muttered, staring in disbelief.
Her mind just couldn't process it. Selene herself had admitted this guy was weird. And Jill could also see with her own eyes that he was weird. Yet sohow, despite all that, she still married him.
Alice raised an eyebrow, her face caught between concern and what the hell did I just hear? She had just admitted that Luke was basically a walking oddity, so how in the world did marriage factor into this equation?
The silence stretched. Luke, of course, pretended not to notice. He kept staring at the CCTV lens like he was in the middle of high-stakes negotiations with it.
Finally, Jill sighed and shook her head. "Married to a weirdo… unbelievable."
Selene, unfazed, crossed her arms. "It works," she said flatly.
No hesitation, no sha in her voice—just certainty. To her, Luke's being weird wasn't a flaw. If anything, that was part of why she liked him. He wasn't predictable, he wasn't boring. He made things interesting.
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