Chapter 143: Not That Way!

"Wowww~ Another human! Heyyyy! I am Sophia!" Sophia greeted excitedly, sitting straight up and waving her hand in the air like an overeager golden retriever.

Jenny stood frozen on the landing, blinking blankly at the scene before her. Her amber eyes darted back and forth between Fredrinn, the blood-slick floor, and the bizarre pair of sisters lounging on the tiled steps.

"I just went down for like five minutes and..." She let out a dazed, disbelieving breath, gesturing wildly with one hand. "Who the fuck are they???"

Fredrinn chuckled at Jenny’s raw, unfiltered reaction. "That’s Sophia and her younger sister, Carmen. We met just now when she wandered down to check on the noise."

"Came down?" Jenny’s lips parted in surprise. "So they were already inside the hotel this whole time? Are they the ones holed up on the seventh floor that Billy was talking about?"

"Wowww! You even know our floor number!" Sophia clapped her hands together like an excited toddler at a carnival. "Ding ding ding! Correct answer!"

Jenny’s eyelid twitched violently. Slowly, she rotated her head, fixing Fredrinn with a heavy, judgmental stare that screamed, Why the hell are you entertaining these jokers?

Fredrinn cleared his throat with a low cough, feeling the weight of her gaze. "Yes... well, try not to mind her too much. She’s quite drunk."

"How rude~!" Sophia pouted, crossing her arms defensively.

Her drunken protest went ignored by almost everyone in the room—except for her little sister.

Carmen’s expression turned sour, her small hands clenching into fists as she watched the sheer lack of respect they were receiving. For an Awakened of their standing, being treated like an embarrassing side act was mortifying, and it was entirely her sister’s fault.

"See! They don’t respect us because of you!" Carmen snapped, stomping her little sneaker against the concrete. She looked ready to rip her own hair out from sheer frustration. "Stop acting like a heartbroken little girl when you’ve never even been in a relationship to begin with!"

"SHH! Don’t tell everyone about that!!!"

Sophia lunged forward with surprising agility, clapping one hand firmly over Carmen’s mouth while raising her other fist to deliver another swift, disciplinary bonk onto the little girl’s sunhat.

Thwack!

Spinning back around with an awkward, sheepish grin, Sophia twirled a strand of pastel green hair around her finger. "You guys... didn’t hear my sister just now, right?"

"Of course we didn’t..." Jenny forced a tight, artificial smile, far too mentally drained to deal with the antics of a drunk twenty-something who couldn’t handle her liquor.

"Great!" Sophia beamed, buying Jenny’s blatant lie without a single shred of suspicion.

"Okay so... Oww!"

She tried to push herself up from the steps, but her heel caught on a slick patch of zombie blood. Her legs went out from under her, and she landed squarely on her butt with a dull, embarrassing thud.

Refusing to acknowledge the slip-up, she cleared her throat, pushed herself upright again, and swayed precariously on the spot.

Without even glancing back at the group, she raised a limp hand, waving it in a loose, lazy circle.

The motion threw her off balance, causing her whole torso to rock forward and back as the room spun in her hazy vision.

"I tired... See tomorrow," she mumbled softly.

Then... there was no then, without another word, explanation, or farewell—she simply turned around and began dragging herself up the stairwell, vanishing into the darkness of the upper floors without a single care in the world.

"Uhm, sorry about her," Carmen said, breaking the awkward silence. The little girl adjusted her ruffled sunhat and sighed deeply, watching Sophia stagger upward. "My parents unfortunately dropped her on her head during childhood."

She turned back to face Fredrinn and Jenny, offering them a neat, surprisingly formal half-bow.

"Please excuse us," Carmen muttered before wheeling around and sprinting up the steps after her sister, her sharp voice echoing down the stairwell. "This isn’t our floor, you dummy! Climb higher, sis! UGH, NOT THAT WAY! THAT’S A BROOM CLOSET!"

Throughout the entire absurd performance, neither Fredrinn nor Jenny showed any heavy reaction. They merely shared a synchronized sigh, shaking their heads in unison.

One thing was abundantly clear: either Sophia was a chronic alcoholic with zero restraint, or she had pushed far past her tolerance to cope with the apocalypse outside.

Regardless of her messy demeanor, Fredrinn couldn’t help but feel a lingering intrigue toward the sisters.

His interest wasn’t solely tied to Sophia’s undeniable, ethereal beauty—it was the power she possessed.

At first glance, conjuring plant matter and blossoming flowers might have seemed tame and mediocre when compared to flashy offensive skills like Max’s jagged electricity or Ash’s concentrated light beams.

Fredrinn, however, was an experienced cultivator. He wasn’t so easily fooled.

He had felt the terrifying, compressed mana circulating within those botanical spears.

What Sophia had put on display was merely an appetizer.

On top of that, little Carmen was an enigma in her own right.

She hadn’t overtly displayed her awakened skill yet, but the fact that she had instinctively tracked and warned her sister about Fredrinn’s invisible acoustic strike spoke volumes.

Her sensory perception was monstrous for an eight-year-old.

As for Jenny... she couldn’t care less about the green-haired drunkard or her bossy little sibling.

In Jenny’s mind, she had successfully executed every single order Fredrinn had given her downstairs. She had herded the panicked civilians, organized the rooms on the second floor, and run straight back up the stairs without complaining.

Now, it was time to cash in her reward.

Her amber eyes darkened with an intense, burning heat as she stared at Fredrinn’s profile.

She had zero intention of letting him spend his night cooped up with Andrea, and she certainly wasn’t going to let Rose monopolize him either.

She wanted him to finish the job he had started inside the cramped backseat of the Camry.

She could still feel his touch lingering on her skin and her thighs tightening reflexively every time their eyes met.

She simply couldn’t hold it anymore!