Felicity's Beast World Apocalypse-Chapter 2: Victor

They slipped through the narrow gap between two cars that had crashed nose to nose in the middle of the street. One engine was still ticking as it cooled. Smoke drifted upward in a thin ribbon. Somewhere nearby, a car alarm pulsed weakly before cutting off mid wail.

It had not even been three hours.

Three hours since phones screamed emergency alerts. Three hours since the sky had flashed that impossible color. Three hours since people started changing.

Felicity’s hands would not stop shaking.

They cut into the alley because it was quieter. Not safe. Just less loud. The city still sounded alive in the wrong ways. Sirens. Screaming. The wet crack of something breaking bone.

An overturned crate lay against the brick wall. Groceries were scattered around it. A bag of oranges had split open and rolled into the gutter. One had been crushed. The smell of citrus mixed strangely with smoke.

Her mind kept circling the same thing.

The light.

When she lifted her hands earlier, Rose had moved faster. Finch had struck cleaner. It had felt like pushing warmth out of her own ribs and into them.

She did not understand it.

She only knew she felt thinner afterward.

Finch checked the alley mouth before speaking. His voice was controlled but tight. "Pharmacy’s around the corner. We grab water. Electrolytes. Fever reducers. Anything for shock."

"Fever?" Rose shot back. "It’s been three hours."

"I watched a man convulse and spike hot enough to fog glass," Finch said shortly. "Whatever this is, it’s not normal flu."

That lands better. It is reactionary. Not preplanned.

Felicity swallowed. "Shouldn’t we be trying to call someone?"

Rose’s jaw flexed.

She pulled her phone from her pocket again even though there was no signal. She stared at the blank bars like they might change if she bullied them hard enough.

"I tried," Rose said flatly. "Sixteen times."

"To who?" Finch asked.

"My sister." A beat. "Straight to nothing."

That is shock, not indifference.

Felicity did not pull her own phone out there was no one to call.

The absence sat heavier than panic.

Finch pushed through the pharmacy service door first. The overhead lights flickered violently. One shelf had been knocked down but the place was not stripped bare yet. It was too soon for looters to organise.

Something moved near the prescription counter a woman stood there swaying.

Her skin was flushed deep red. Veins dark under the surface like ink spreading through water. Her jaw jerked once, twice. Then she lunged.

Rose reacted first.

Claws flashed. The woman went down hard, skull striking tile.

Felicity stared.

Three hours ago that had been someone waiting for antibiotics for a sinus infection.

The thought made her stomach flip.

More shapes staggered from between the aisles. Not full decay. Not zombies yet. Wrong. Feverish. Twitching.

Finch’s voice cut low. "On my mark."

Felicity did not think this time she raised her hands.

The warmth burst forward, stronger because she was scared. It wrapped Rose first. Rose’s movements sharpened instantly. Then Finch. His stance aligned like someone had adjusted invisible strings.

The infected came fast and sloppy.

Rose dropped one with a clean slice across the throat. Finch used a fallen metal display rack as a shield and rammed it forward.

It was chaos, not choreographed yet.

When the last body stopped moving, the silence felt stunned.

Felicity lowered her arms slowly her vision swam.

Finch grabbed bottled water, sports drinks, paracetamol, ibuprofen. No antibiotics this time. Not yet. That would feel forced.

Rose kicked a fallen phone across the tile. It buzzed uselessly "Still no signal," she muttered.

Outside, sirens wailed again. Closer.

They did not stay.

By the time they reached the stream, dusk had barely settled. The sky still held a smear of orange.

They reached the stream because it was the first open space that wasn’t screaming.

Smoke rose behind them in uneven columns. Sirens still wailed somewhere deeper in the city, overlapping and dissonant, then cutting off one by one.

Three hours.

Three hours since everything cracked open.

Finch dropped the stolen supplies beside a flat stretch of rock and crouched to check them. Water. Electrolytes. Basic painkillers. Gauze. He was still thinking in mission structure. Inventory. Stabilize. Assess.

Rose stood at the edge of the tree line, scanning without urgency. Not tense. Not frantic detached.

"My sister lives five blocks east," Rose said absently while unscrewing a bottle cap. "You should try again before we move."

Rose didn’t turn around.

"She’ll either survive or she won’t," she said calmly. "Running into that won’t change it."

No emotion. No crack in her voice. Just fact.

Felicity looked at her.

"You’re not going to check?"

Rose shrugged one shoulder. "We weren’t close."

That was it not cruelty. Not grief.

Just absence.

Felicity did not ask again.

She knelt at the stream and splashed water over her face. It was cold enough to sting. The reflection looking back at her felt wrong. Clean. Untouched. Like she had stepped out of a photo shoot instead of a massacre.

Her chest still felt hollow.

She stood too fast.

The world tilted sharply sideways.

Her stomach dropped. Her hearing narrowed to a thin high ring.

She tried to say something.

It came out as, "I.."

And then her knees folded.

Victor had been moving through the overgrown city fast, tracking Finch’s scent trail and boot pattern. Snow Team had split during the weapons surveillance sweep. Then the city imploded. Comms died. Civilians started attacking each other.

There had been no briefing for this.

He broke through the brush just in time to see her fall.

He moved before thought formed.

He caught her mid collapse, one arm locking around her waist, the other bracing her shoulders before her skull hit stone.

She fit against him too easily.

Too small.

Too warm.

His entire body went rigid.

"What happened?" Finch demanded, rising immediately.

Victor didn’t answer he was staring down at her face.

Her lashes rested against flushed skin. Her fennec ears lay slack against her hair. Her pulse fluttered wildly beneath the thin skin of her throat.

Something in him snapped tight.

Claim. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

It hit fast and irrational. Deep in the spine. Animal.

His grip tightened instinctively, pulling her fully against his chest.

Rose stepped forward. "She burned herself out. That glow thing."

Victor’s eyes lifted slowly.

"Don’t touch her."

The words were quiet.

Rose froze "What?"

He didn’t look away from Felicity. His hand shifted from her waist to the back of her head, fingers spreading possessively into her hair as if shielding it.

"I said don’t touch her."

Finch stared. "Victor, what the hell?"

"I’ve got her." His tone wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic, it was final.

Rose’s eyes narrowed, not offended, just assessing. "You met her five minutes ago."

His jaw flexed.

"I know."

That was the problem.

He didn’t know why his pulse had spiked when she collapsed. Didn’t know why the scent of her skin under smoke and adrenaline was suddenly sharp in his lungs. Didn’t know why every muscle in his back felt coiled and ready to tear something apart for getting too close.

But the instinct was there.

Violent and immediate.

Felicity stirred weakly against him, fingers curling faintly into his shirt.

The contact sealed it.

His shoulders broadened slightly, posture shifting unconsciously, body angling to block both Rose and Finch.

Rose noticed.

She tilted her head. "That’s new."

He ignored her.

"She overextended," he said instead. "Her temperature’s high. She needs water. Sugar."

Finch handed him a bottle carefully, like approaching a dog guarding a bone.

Victor took it without breaking eye contact.

He shifted Felicity higher against him, supporting her head with one hand while pressing the bottle to her lips with the other.

She swallowed weakly.

Relief hit him sharper than it should have.

Rose watched the whole thing with eerie calm "you get territorial when something’s marked?" she asked bluntly.

Victor’s eyes flicked to her.

"I didn’t mark her."

Rose’s lips twitched faintly. "Sure."

Finch rubbed a hand over his face. "This is not the time."

Victor ignored both of them.

He adjusted Felicity again, thumb brushing lightly over the base of her ear without conscious thought. His breathing had slowed. Deepened. Anchored around her weight in his arms.

Rose crouched closer, deliberately invading space to test him.

His shoulders tensed instantly a low sound left his chest before he could stop it.

Not a growl.

Something lower.

Warning.

Rose’s brows lifted.

"Well," she muttered. "That’s inconvenient."

Felicity’s eyes fluttered open slightly her gaze was unfocused, dazed.

She blinked up at him.

He felt it physically.

Like a wire tightening from sternum to throat.

"You’re fine," he said, voice lower than usual. Controlled. "I’ve got you."

The phrasing wasn’t conscious.

Rose caught it immediately.

"You’ve got her?" she repeated.

Victor didn’t look away from Felicity.

"Yes."

No hesitation.

No embarrassment.

Just certainty.

Finch stared between them. "We were literally tracking illegal weapons Three hour ago."

"Now we’re not," Victor replied flatly.

His grip did not loosen.

Behind them, another distant explosion rippled through the city air.

Rose stood slowly.

"I don’t care what you’re doing," she said calmly. "But if you slow us down because of some new alpha kink, I will knock you out myself."

Victor’s gaze lifted slowly "You can try."

It wasn’t aggressive.

Rose held his stare another long second.

Then she huffed softly and turned back toward the treeline.

"Fine," she said. "Carry your new obsession. Just move."

Victor rose smoothly, Felicity secure against his chest like she had always belonged there he did not question the instinct, he did not analyse it.

Something in him had chosen.

And in a city that had shattered in under three hours, that clarity felt like oxygen.