CHAPTER 121: 121-NOT SLEEPING WITH ANYONE

Clementine:

"Did you guys check the area?" Haiden asked after running around the mall, up and down.

"No, we only checked the ground floor," Troy said, twirling his finger in a circle.

"I don’t think we can stay here for too long. This place is way too open," Yorick suggested.

"Look what I found," Ian said in his usual cheery, cocky voice. He walked in with a trolley full of food items.

"They’re all expired goods, Ian. You wasted your time," I said tiredly.

"Nope, they’re not." The way he said it made me freeze for a second.

When Haiden, Troy, and Yorick rushed toward him to check the boxes, I snapped back to reality. I hurried over and watched their faces before picking up one of the cans myself.

"Wait, how is this possible?" I asked, checking the other boxes. One after another, I saw expiration dates marked 2027, 2028. But the manufacturing dates were recent. It made no sense.

"Well, the North used to be a living place. There were factories making food and everything. Who knows, maybe there’s a small city somewhere still operating, trying to survive," Troy suggested with a shrug, grabbing a pack of chips and tearing it open. As soon as he took a bite, he closed his eyes and smiled, savoring the taste.

The others began eating too, but I just stood there holding the can, staring at it.

"But then why would they deliver food to these malls?" I asked.

They slowed down their chewing. Then I heard the loud snap of a wafer. Turning to Ian, I saw he wasn’t paying attention to the question at all, he was already eating.

"What? You guys are way too dramatic. Just enjoy the food. Who cares who left it here?" he said.

I guess the alphas agreed, because they instantly dug back in. I did too. At this point, there was no point in arguing. The food was here, and we were starving.

"Do you still think we can’t stay here?" I joked to Troy and the others.

"I think it’ll be better if we collect as much food as we can and then move on to a smaller, more secure house." Ian wasn’t wrong, though. We needed a smaller area to stay in. So much had been happening that we hadn’t even realized it was already evening. Soon the darkness would consume us, and then we’d be at the mercy of pretty much every monster in the North.

By the time we walked out of the mall carrying bags, it was already dark, and the north had gone completely silent. We’d been up north before and had spent nights there, but it had never been this quiet. It felt like no living being had ever existed here. Even our footsteps sounded so loud that I felt uneasy—maybe even afraid of drawing the attention of some monster with the heavy steps I was taking. None of us spoke, not even in a whisper, because of how silent it was.

Ian pointed toward one of the houses, and with a few silent nods, we let him know we agreed. There were no other crusaders on the road by then, so they had probably already found places to stay for the night.

We headed toward the house. It was brown, the first among the other three brown houses. From three houses down the mall, the packets we carried were already making too much noise. When we reached the house, we expected the doors to be unlocked, but to our surprise, there was a huge lock on the outside. Whoever had lived there must have had time to lock the place before leaving, rather than fleeing in a panic. With just a glance from Haiden, I knew it was my job to open the door.

Once I unlocked the door and we stepped inside, I expected a cloud of dust to hit us. Instead, the house was surprisingly clean—not spotless, but without many spiderwebs or much dust. Ian quietly closed the door, as he was good at being silent.

We found ourselves in a spacious living room. From the layout, I could tell it was a three-story house, and the living room alone was beautiful. The furniture didn’t look too old, maybe from around 2010 or 2012. I noticed many of the windows were boarded shut, which meant people must have lived here for a while. But then, who had cleaned the place? That part didn’t make sense.

"Guys, check this out," Troy said, snapping his fingers to get our attention. We all followed him to the kitchen, where a large window faced the road outside, though it was now boarded shut. He pointed to the contents of the fridge. It looked just like the one at the mall, with the same expiration dates. On the stove, there was a pot of beans, almost as if someone had cooked them recently but left in a hurry, though not so hurried that they forgot to lock the doors. It was all confusing.

"Anyway, we do know that people live here. Don’t we know that already? What’s so shocking?" Ian shrugged, clearly unbothered.

"What are we going to do now? How are we going to come across this creature? And how are we going to slay her?" I asked, walking back with them to the living room.

A twelve-seater sofa sat in the middle of the room, and we settled into it comfortably. Still, I wasn’t sure we could all sleep there, maybe three alphas could fit, but the others would need to find bedrooms. I spotted one, but its door was locked. I hesitated, uneasy about opening a bedroom that might have been used recently.

"It’s the first night, Clementine. There will be even tougher monsters, and we might have to stay somewhere for a whole month before we can go back home," Ian said, his tone free of mockery or taunting. I’d noticed he’d been a little nicer to me since last night, though I wasn’t sure.

"Don’t worry, Clementine. Even if we have to stay for a week, we’re with you." Haiden suddenly cut in, letting me know he was still there. He sat on the couch with one arm stretched out and his leg bouncing.

"She knows she has a mate here," Yorick added, tilting his face to look Haiden in the eye, almost as if challenging him.

"You guys are making her uncomfortable. You know she doesn’t like attention," Troy said, making me raise an eyebrow at him. Out of all people, I would have expected him to think poorly of me, he was the one who had accused me of starting gossip and all that nonsense. But I chose not to dwell on it.

"So what, are you guys going to keep fighting for her attention all night? Oh, please, don’t tell me you’re expecting her to sleep with one of you."

And then Ian, being Ian, suddenly brought it up, something that had never even crossed my mind. At his comment, I gasped.