Chapter 456: Marlon’s Gift

"Is that enough, or are you going to make me clean every fish in the Atlantic Ocean?" I asked Marlon after what felt like half an hour of nonstop work.

My hands were wet, sticky, and smelled like fish no matter how many times I wiped them on the rag beside the table. Several cleaned fish were already piled on one side, while the other side was a disgusting mess of scales, blood, guts, and things I really did not want to identify.

Marlon did not even look impressed.

Instead, he kept cutting through another fish with the same calm, practiced movements he used whenever he was holding a knife.

"Instead of always complaining, you should learn to appreciate useful teachings," he said. "In this world, fish are one of the most important food sources we have. You should learn how to make the most of them."

"Right," I muttered.

I looked down at the table again.

That was a mistake.

The wooden surface was covered in blood, scales, and remains from the fish we had cleaned. The smell had settled into the air around us so heavily that it felt like I could taste it whenever I breathed.

"I don’t think I’ll be able to eat fish for a while after this," I said, my nose twitching.

God.

I turned my face away and took a slow breath through my mouth.

I had seen worse.

A lot worse.

Infected with their stomachs split open. Bodies torn apart by Hybrids. People covered in blood after a fight. Compared to that, fish guts should not have been a problem.

That did not mean I wanted to stand beside them for another second.

I swallowed down the nausea and reached for the bottle of water near the edge of the table.

"I see both of you are doing well here."

I paused before taking a drink.

Summer stood a few steps away, watching us with her arms loosely folded. She must have been there for at least a minute, because there was a small smile on her face like she had been enjoying my suffering.

"You think?" I asked, groaning as I wiped my hands with the towel.

"Yeah," Summer replied, trying not to laugh. "You looked like you were enjoying yourself quite a bit."

"Only your dad would enjoy cutting fish apart," I said before taking a mouthful of water. "The old man clearly lost his mind after leaving the Marines."

Summer’s expression changed immediately.

Before I could react, she grabbed the nearest bottle and flicked water straight into my face.

I jerked my head aside, but not quickly enough.

Cold water hit my cheek and ran down my neck.

I slowly turned back toward her.

Summer stood there with a hard stare, though the corner of her mouth was still twitching like she was holding back a smile.

"Don’t talk badly about my dad," she said.

"Yes," I replied.

Then I reached toward her.

Summer’s eyes widened.

"Ryan, don’t—"

I had already wiped most of the blood from my hand with the towel. Most of it.

But the reddish stain around my fingers and the smell of fish definitely had not disappeared.

I touched her cheek lightly.

Summer froze.

Then her entire face twisted.

"God!" She pulled back so fast that she nearly bumped into the side of the table. Her eyes watered as she rubbed at her cheek, and a faint red color spread across her face. "You!"

"See?" I said, smiling. "Very enjoyable. I’ve been enjoying it for half an hour."

"There was no reason to make me smell that!" She complained.

"You needed to understand my pain."

"I smell it every day," Summer shot back. "He’s my father, need I remind you?"

I looked toward Marlon.

Then I looked back at Summer with what I hoped was a genuinely sympathetic expression.

"Right," I said. "My condolences."

Summer narrowed her eyes at me.

Marlon finally stopped cutting the fish in front of him and looked between us.

"Both of you," he said sternly, "how about you stop disrespecting your elders for once?"

"Looks like you didn’t beat him up today, Dad," Summer said.

Marlon gave her a dry look.

"I’m not that cruel."

"That is debatable," I muttered.

"And if I had trained him today," Marlon continued, ignoring me, "you would have been angry too."

Summer’s eyes shifted away for a moment.

"Why would she be angry?" I asked, taking another drink of water.

Marlon’s mouth lifted slightly, almost into a smile.

"You should have seen her earlier," he said. "She threatened not to speak to me for a week if I dared hit you while you were still injured."

I nearly choked on the water.

I lowered the bottle and looked at Summer.

She had gone quiet.

The slight redness on her face deepened, and she crossed her arms as if that would somehow protect her from the attention.

"Well, you were already injured enough," she said. "That was normal. And I didn’t trust my dad not to go too far."

Marlon let out a quiet scoff.

"I know my limits."

"No, you don’t," Summer replied immediately.

I looked between them.

Honestly, I was not sure which one was right.

Marlon’s idea of a reasonable training session had involved repeatedly throwing me onto the ground until I could barely stand. He probably did have limits somewhere, but I had not found them yet.

Still, hearing Summer had worried enough to threaten him for me left an unexpectedly warm feeling in my chest.

"Well," I said, lowering my gaze for a second, "thanks."

Summer glanced at me.

Her expression softened slightly.

Then, before either of us could say anything else, Marlon slapped the table hard enough to make the knife beside the fish jump.

"If you’re done flirting and complaining, brat, come with me."

I frowned at him.

"Where?"

"You’ll see."

"I’m coming too," Summer said immediately.

Marlon turned toward her.

"There’s no need, sweetheart."

"There is," she said.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at him.

"And what exactly are you going to show him that I can’t come see?"

For a moment, Marlon just stared at her.

Summer stared back without moving.

I stayed quiet.

I had no idea what Marlon wanted to show me, but the way Summer immediately became suspicious made me curious too.

Marlon eventually sighed.

"Alright," he said. "Come if you want."

Summer smiled in victory.

Marlon shook his head and set his knife down on the table. He wiped his hands on a cloth, then began walking away from the park without waiting for either of us.

Summer and I followed behind him.

As we moved through Brighton Park and toward the damaged parts of the Boardwalk, the mood slowly changed.

The smell of fish faded behind us, replaced by smoke, dust, saltwater, and the familiar scent of damaged wood. Around us, people were still working to repair what the Screamer attack had destroyed.

Some carried planks toward broken barricades. Others swept shattered glass from the streets. A few people hauled debris away from the damaged storefronts while armed survivors kept watch at the edges of the Boardwalk.

The place was alive again.

But it was not the same.

Too many people had been hurt. Too many had died. Even with the Screamer stopped, the Boardwalk still looked like a place that had barely survived a disaster.

I watched a group reinforce one of the barriers near a side street, then looked toward Marlon.

"Did you manage to recover all the territory you lost?" I asked.

"No," Marlon replied.

He did not slow his pace.

"We’re not rushing. We don’t know how many Infected are still hiding in the buildings, and we’re not wasting bullets unless we need to."

"Right."

That made sense.

The Screamer had stopped, so the Infected were no longer in that unnatural frenzy. But that did not mean they had disappeared. There were probably still groups wandering through the nearby streets, trapped in buildings, or waiting somewhere we could not see.

Bullets were valuable now.

More valuable than before.

I looked across the Boardwalk, toward the direction of Brigantine beyond the water.

"Callighan won’t take long to prepare another attack, will he?" I asked.

My voice came out more tense than I meant it to.

Marlon’s expression hardened.

"No," he said. "He won’t."

The answer was simple.

Too simple.

But I already knew it was the truth.

Callighan had attacked the Boardwalk once with the Screamer. Gaspar had nearly killed me while trying to keep the Matrix active. They had Mei, Emily, Keith, Tommy, and who knew how many other people trapped in Brigantine.

They were not going to stop because we had survived one attack.

"I asked Rico to keep watch from the Golden Nugget Hotel," Marlon continued. "If he sees suspicious movement, we’ll know before they reach us."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Is leaving the hotel to Rico really a good idea?"

Marlon stopped walking.

Slowly, he turned his head toward me.

"He may be all muscle," he said, glaring, "but he isn’t stupid, brat."

"Reminds me of someone," I replied.

Summer immediately covered her mouth, already trying not to laugh.

"No wonder you made him your right-hand man," I continued. "Thankfully, Molly is your left hand. That way, there’s at least some brainpower involved."

Marlon stared at me.

"Do you want to die, boy?"

I ignored him and kept walking.

Beside me, Summer failed to hold it in.

A small giggle escaped her.

Marlon and I both turned toward her at the same time.

Summer’s eyes widened.

She quickly pressed her lips together and tried to look serious.

"You’re both impossible."

We walked for a while without Marlon telling us where we were going.

Eventually, Marlon led us toward a house near the area where he and Summer had been staying.

I looked at the building, then at him.

Summer did the same.

"So this was just about our house?" She asked dryly.

Marlon did not answer.

He stepped up to the front door, unlocked it, and pushed it open.

"Stay there," he said. "I’ll be back."

Then he walked inside and went upstairs without another word.

I stood outside for a second, looking at Summer.

She looked back at me.

"Do you know what this is about?" I asked.

Summer shook her head.

"No idea."

Summer walked into the living room, and I followed her.

Summer sat on one end of the sofa.

I sat down beside her, leaving a little space between us.

At first, neither of us said anything.

The silence was not uncomfortable.

Not immediately.

I could hear faint movement upstairs, probably Marlon moving things around.

Summer rested her hands together in her lap and looked forward.

I leaned back carefully, trying not to put pressure on my sore ribs.

For a few seconds, it almost felt normal.

Then the silence stayed.

And the more it stayed, the more I became aware that it was only Summer and me in the room.

The casual mood from earlier, the jokes about Marlon, the fish, her throwing water in my face, slowly faded. In its place came the memory I had been trying not to think about too much.

What had happened before.

The accident.

The moment I had lost control, pushed Summer down, kissed her, and almost crossed a line that should never have been crossed.

My stomach tightened.

We had both acted like nothing had happened since then. We had spoken normally. She had hugged me after the Screamer attack. She had worried when Marlon might have trained me despite my injuries.

But acting normal did not erase it.

I turned slightly toward her.

"Summer..."

She looked at me.

"About what happened before—"

"It was an accident," she cut in quickly.

I stopped.

Summer kept her gaze forward for a moment before looking down at her hands.

"It was an accident," she repeated, quieter this time. "I know you didn’t do it on purpose."

"I’m still sorry," I said.

She looked toward me again.

Her cheeks had become slightly red.

"It’s fine."

I nodded slowly, but the words did not make the guilt disappear.

"I really did feel bad about it," I said. "I didn’t know how to apologize properly. I kept thinking you were angry at me, or that you didn’t want to be around me anymore."

"You’re overthinking it," Summer replied. "It wasn’t that bad."

"It was bad," I said before I could stop myself.

Summer blinked.

"I pushed you down and kissed you," I continued, my voice lower. "And then I tried to—"

"I know!" Summer interrupted.

Her face turned completely red.

She looked away so quickly that I almost felt worse for bringing it up.

"Can we just forget about it already?" she asked. "Please?"

"Right," I said. "Sorry."

Summer let out a small breath.

"It’s okay."

The room fell quiet again.

This time, it was still awkward, but at least it felt like we had said what needed to be said for now.

Then we heard heavy footsteps on the stairs.

Marlon came down carrying a large rectangular box in both hands.

Summer immediately sat straighter.

"What’s that?" she asked.

Marlon did not answer at first.

He walked to the space in front of the sofa and set the box carefully on the floor. It landed with a low, heavy sound.

Then he crouched down and opened it.

My eyes widened.

Inside was a long rifle-like weapon.

At first glance, it looked almost like a gun made for humans. But the longer I stared at it, the more wrong that impression felt.

The weapon was too smooth.

Too clean.

Its body was white, almost bone-colored, with thin bluish lines running across its surface. The material did not look like metal, plastic, or anything else I recognized. It was shaped like a rifle, but there were no normal parts. No visible magazine. No familiar mechanism. No way to tell how it fired.

It was definitely Starakian.

"This..." I muttered.

Marlon looked toward me.

"This is the weapon I took from Zakthar," he said. "The one I used to drive Gaspar away."

I stared at it.

The anti-Symbiote weapon.

I leaned forward and reached for the rifle.

The moment my fingers touched it, discomfort crawled across my skin.

It was not pain exactly.

More like my body instinctively recognized that this thing was made to harm creatures like Dullahan. Something deep inside me reacted to it, warning me to pull away.

But it did not burn me.

It did not hurt me.

I kept my hand against it, studying the strange blue lines along its surface.

"Take it with you," Marlon said.

I looked up sharply.

"What?"

Summer looked just as surprised.

"Dad," she said, "are you serious?"

"If anyone has a real chance against Gaspar, it’s him," Marlon replied.

He folded his arms as he looked at me.

"And his chances will be better with that weapon than without it."

I frowned.

"Isn’t this your only weapon against a Symbiote Host?"

"Hopefully, I won’t run into your kind every day," Marlon said.

"Still—"

"It’s better in your hands," he cut in. "You’re the one Gaspar wants. You’re the one who will have to face him again."

His voice remained steady, but I could hear the seriousness underneath it.

"You can give it back once you kill the bastard."

For a moment, I did not answer.

I looked down at the weapon again.

It was heavy when I lifted it from the box, but not too heavy. My strength made it manageable, though I could tell an ordinary person would struggle to carry it for long.

The rifle felt cold in my hands.

Foreign.

Dangerous.

But it was also a chance.

Gaspar had beaten me easily before. Dullahan’s wind, my axe, my speed, everything I had tried had barely slowed him down. And Ravager had been worse. Gaspar’s Symbiote had turned into something massive and monstrous, something I had not even been able to properly fight.

With this weapon, things might be different.

Not easy.

Not safe.

But different.

I could not rely on becoming strong enough through determination alone. I needed every advantage I could get if I wanted to save Mei and Emily, protect the others, and make sure Gaspar never got the chance to tear through the Boardwalk again.

I looked at Marlon.

"Thanks," I said.

Marlon’s expression softened slightly.

It was not a big smile. Marlon was not the kind of man who openly showed much emotion.

But it was there.

"Don’t thank me yet," he said. "Learn how to use it properly first."

I nodded.