Chapter Twenty-Nine （Meet Zero）

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (MEET ZERO)

HAZEL

There was roaring and yelling outside of Orson's office. He looked between the two of us.

"You two are barely hanging on to your sanity."

"Wow, you need a degree to figure that out?" Gonzo snapped, his eyes glowing.

"Gonzo," I sighed, wrapping my arms around him. He stilled as I hugged him tightly. "Just hang on. We'll get Zero back now. The video said it's an object inside his head."

"How are we supposed to remove something from his brain?" Gonzo growled. I hugged him tighter, and his arms circled me.

"He's a fucking eldritch horror, Gonzo. I think he might be able to survive a little brain surgery." The yells outside the door grew louder.

"I'm going to see what's going on," Orson said. We all filed out of his office and made our way to the big room. Gonzo gripped my hand tightly, refusing to let me go. He was still hot. He hadn't sealed the bond with Zero. I was concerned for both of them. If Zero wasn't okay, Gonzo wouldn't be either.

In the big room, the Wards were enraged. It was a mob. They had stopped fighting one another to turn on the staff. Orderlies formed a circle around nurses, trying to hold back the violence.

"You're locking us in here to die!" Mad Dog growled above the crowd.

"We can't leave either!" The bald orderly spat back. "We're stuck in here the same as you."

"Liar!" Josie, the demon Infernal leader, called out.

"They've gone into an emergency protocol—"

"Why now!" Mad Dog yelled.

"The uprising—"

"Bullshit," Josie snapped, cutting off the orderly. "If that were the truth, they would have done something when Bree took over. They would have done something when the Wards formed. They would have done something when their inmates slowly became zombies!"

"You don't want to know the truth," the bald orderly sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"No, they do," Rachel said. "You want to know the truth!" The crowd roared. Her arm swung around, pointing in the corner. Zero stood there. His eyes swung to me, and he smiled. Two orderlies were on either side of him, holding actual handguns.

"Stein locked us in?" Mad Dog growled.

"No," Rachel said.

"What are you getting at?" Josie asked. The orderlies pulled Zero forward and shoved him on top of a table. He stood above us, looking down like a bored lord. Everyone shrunk back a few steps.

"Rachel," the bald orderly growled in warning.

"I've had a-fucking-nough of this," she hissed. The other nurses egged her on, nodding and agreeing.

"He's not running the asylum," Rachel yelled, pointing at Zero.

"What is she doing?" Gonzo growled. He tightened his hold on my hand and started to push through the crowd with me. The density fought against him. People pushed back instead of letting us through.

"If he's not in charge, then who is?" Someone asked.

"That's not important. What is important is what he is," Rachel replied.

"Doctor Stein?" Mad Dog asked in confusion.

"What is he?" A deep voice asked. We all twisted to see Nemo emerging from the hallway. Zero looked at me and smiled softly like we were sharing an inside joke. He lifted his finger to his mouth and gave me the sign for shushing.

Inside my head, he was whispering my name. Hazel. Hazel. Hazel. Hazel. It sounded like his voice was everywhere.

Gonzo tugged me along, trying to push through the crowd. His hand felt like lava, and his eyes burned molten. He was going into rut psychosis again.

"Doctor Stein is an inmate," Rachel said. Everyone went quiet. The shock was a physical feeling in the room—paused breaths and frozen bodies as everyone let her words sink in.

"But you work for him," Josie said tentatively.

"He's a fucking inmate?" Mad Dog asked in disbelief.

"And he's why we're locked in," Rachel added. Gonzo groaned, wiping at the sweat on his forehead. He kept blinking the sting from his eyes.

"We got to get to him," he growled.

"You all know nothing," Rachel sighed. "We aren't here for you. We're here to watch him . It's his cage, and they'll never risk letting him out. Verfallen has gone into lockdown because they think Stein is unstable."

"Unstable? What the fuck does this all mean."

"His name isn't Stein. They call him Zero, Patient Zero. He's the reason the asylum was made… the very first patient." Everyone swung their heads to Zero. He looked bored again. The moments of expression came and went, like a dying flashlight, on and off, on and off. Apathy, mania—back and forth. Something was flickering to life. Something terrifying.

"They'll let us all die before they let him out," Rachel said.

"Hes… he's a fucking patient? An inmate?? You let a criminally insane mad scientist do whatever he wanted to us!" Mad Dog yelled out. A riot was forming, even angrier than before. Rachel looked at the crowd. Her loose tongue hadn't helped the situation—it made it worse.

"Stand back!" One of the orderlies barked. Mad Dog lunged at him, and three more wolves went with him, taking the man down. Mad Dog reared back up, gun in hand.

A gleam of sick delight rolled over Mad Dog as he waved the gun around, pointing at random female inmates. He laughed each time one screamed. Finally, he twisted the gun towards Zero.

"If he's the problem, then I've got a solution." Gonzo's head shot up. He reached out, tearing at the people in front of him to get through. I held my breath, unable to do anything.

Zero smiled wide right before the gun went off. His body jerked and staggered. It was hard to look at the gaping hole where Zero's face used to be. His body dropped, and I pressed my hand to my mouth to keep a choked scream held back.

"Let's see him survive that," Mad Dog laughed. Gonzo dropped to his knees, clawing at his chest. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he started gasping for breath.

Zero had said losing a mate would drive him insane.

"Gonzo," I said desperately.

Gonzo scratched his chest, tearing his clothes. People backed away from him. Mad Dog looked over, and his face dropped.

"Fuck," he hissed. "Stein was his mate."

From the tips of Gonzo's fingers, claws slowly protruded. I could see bone moving beneath his skin. It wasn't like any shift I'd ever seen before. I watched as Gonzo's face sagged and split. Human teeth were sprinkled onto the floor one by one. His belly ripped open, releasing a gush of blood. It was horrifying.

Gonzo reached up with his claws, ripping off chunks of his skin to reveal red fur. I took a step back, unable to stop my visceral reaction.

A wild, vicious cackle came from him. The blood-soaked fox grew bigger and bigger until his head hit the ceiling. His eyes spun wildly. He stared down at the crowd.

"I should have killed every single last one of you from the start." It sent shivers up my arms. No shifter could talk while in animal form. But this wasn't a werewolf. This was the god I'd hunted for years.

His swirling eyes swung to Mad Dog Mick. The Alpha of Rabids turned and ran, gun still in hand. Gonzo gave chase.

"Gonzo!" I cried as he disappeared.

"Look!" Someone shouted. I swung around to see Zero' stumbling back up to his feet on the table. Black sludge filled in his head, and then morphed into the shape of a face. In a matter of seconds, the black liquid turned red. In another moment, all the colors and small details of Zero's face coalesced. He had the same apathetic look over his disturbingly perfect face as always. His eyes swung down to his shoes. He bent over, picking something up. He held it up towards the light. An occult charm sparkled in his hand—the witch gag.

"No!" Rachel gasped. An orderly pulled up a walkie-talkie and frantically tried to communicate with whoever might be listening.

"He's free! The charm is gone! Zero is free!"

Zero looked over at the man. We all held our breath in silence as a static whine came from the walkie-talkie. It beeped—someone was responding.

"There's cyanide in the basement." It cut back off, and the line returned to static. The bald orderly swallowed and took a half step forward.

"Doctor Stein?" He asked. Zero looked at him apathetically. "How are you feeling?"

"Cyanide won't help," Zero said with disinterest, pocketing the charm that had been shot out of his head.

"Patient Zero, how are you feeling?" He asked again, sounding desperate.

" Death won't help," Zero continued. His eyes swept over the room. "As we all know, death doesn't deliver anyone from Verfallen. Do you know what I do to the dead before I bring them back?" He looked at the orderlies and nurses. "No, you don't, or else you'd have told your owners."

Zero's face split into an alarming smile. His eyes shone with excitement. He twisted his coat's straps around his long fingers playfully.

"How am I feeling?" He asked back at the orderly. "Well, I'm feeling like myself again." His eyes began to split apart and swim in the pupils. "It's ironic you call them zombies since I'm the one eating their brains."

The nurses turned and ran down the hallway towards the basement. All except Rachel, who dropped to her knees, holding her head in her hands. She was a zombie. There was wide-eyed horror on her face as his words soaked in. He'd eaten part of her brain.

This was the monster they'd effectively gagged for hundreds of years. The one they'd invited from another dimension. The orderlies backed out of the room, turned, and ran.

"You think I've been trapped in here with you all this time," Zero said to the inmates. He now had three separate pupils swimming around in his eyes. "This is my prison. I'm the only inmate. You all? You're the toys they throw at me, praying it keeps me subdued."

The room was frozen in terror or maybe held in place by Zero's power. People shuffled backwards slowly, eyes glued to the man in front of them. Zero's pupils swam around one another.

"You aren't patients. You aren't prisoners. You are food. And I'm really fucking hungry," he growled. The building shook, and alarms started blaring. "Welcome to the real Verfallen. You're now the contingency plan."

He leapt off the table and grabbed someone. I watched as he reeled the inmate in close and opened his mouth. From Zero's throat, something snaked out. Red tentacles slid across his lips and then shot into the other person's mouth. One tentacle detoured, slipping into the man's eye socket. I could see its shape running up his forehead under his skin. The inmate gagged and choked but didn't fight at all. Tears spilled out as he kept staring at Zero's eyes.

Zero's tentacles pushed deeper, and then out they came again, brain matter dripping from them in clumps. The tentacles slid back into his mouth.

"Delicious," he said with a smile, dropping the inmate to the floor.

Whatever mass hysteria that had kept everyone silent popped. All hell broke loose. The screams scratched up the walls. A stampede pushed me back—a riptide of fear dragging me away from Zero and into the halls. Everyone scrambled. The walls started to move, swelling and relaxing as if they were breathing. The lights flickered, and a static-laced cry of pain came through the speakers.

People grabbed their heads and screamed, diving into any room they could find. They shoved themselves under beds and in wardrobes.

We were rats trapped in a monster's cage.