Chapter 8 Beating Him Relentlessly
As she wandered further, two familiar figures suddenly materialized ahead.
A young man was walking beside a woman with a prominent baby bump.
Iris recognized them: Ryan and Mia, the pair she’d outsmarted just days prior.
“Honey, calm down. Buy whatever you want today—anything! Just forgive me. Don’t get so worked up; it’s bad for the baby!” Ryan begged, his voice laced with desperation.
“Ryan! You’ve been lying to me this whole time! Your family doesn’t even own that house! You tricked me into this!” Mia snapped, her voice sharp with anger.
“That house is definitely ours,” Ryan insisted, his tone wavering slightly.
“Then what about those men today? Debt collectors showed up at your door, yelling that the house is theirs! You even made your grandma so furious that she had to be hospitalized!” Mia shot back, her eyes blazing.
“Honey, I don’t know what’s going on either. My mom really bought that house from Iris for two million dollars. Once we find her, we can transfer the ownership right away!” Ryan stammered.
“Wait a second! Didn’t your mom say the house was still Iris’? That she was letting you live there as a gift, so we couldn’t add my name? Now it’s suddenly bought by your family and ready for ownership transfer?”
Mia’s skepticism cut through Ryan’s excuses.
“Honey, come on. Anyway, this house will be ours sooner or later. I’m the only son in my family—everything will be mine eventually! And mine is yours! Just trust me!” Ryan pleaded, scrambling for words.
“Ryan! How am I supposed to trust you?” Mia screamed, “You said it was fully furnished and move-in ready, but it’s just an empty shell! You claimed your family held the title, and now debt collectors are hounding us!
“I see it clearly now—your family is using me! I’m not keeping this baby! I’m getting an abortion right now!”
“Honey! Honey, wait!” Ryan called out, panicking.
Hiding around a corner, Iris listened in, a faint smile on her face.
This is priceless.
Only ten days had passed, and the Hale family was already in complete chaos—even Amanda was in the hospital.
But she could make things even more interesting.
Watching Ryan rush to chase Mia onto the escalator, Iris decided to stir the pot. She let out a sharp whistle in his direction.
Frantic and distracted, Ryan froze at the sound. He turned around and spotted her leaning casually against the glass handrail, watching them with an amused glint in her eyes.
“Iris!” he snarled.
Ryan’s feet rooted to the spot, the urge to chase Iris warring with the need to stop his wife. But by then, Mia had already disappeared down to the next floor.
“Honey!” he shouted, torn between the two.
On one side was his wife, threatening to end their unborn child’s life. On the other side was the woman who’d ruined everything.
Ryan wished he could split himself in two.
After a split-second of hesitation, he made his choice. He was going after Iris!
Dammit!
If he caught this bitch and dragged her to Mia to explain, everything would be fixed!
Ryan spun around and began scrambling upward on the downward-moving escalator, his shoes scraping against the steps as he chased after Iris.
Iris walked at an unhurried pace, her steps deliberate. By the time Ryan reached her floor, she’d already circled around to the opposite escalator and was heading down, leading him on a wild goose chase through the entire mall.
The pursuit eventually spilled into the underground parking lot, the echo of their footsteps bouncing off the concrete walls.
“Dammit! Where do you think you’re going, you bitch!” Ryan panted heavily, his chest heaving as he cornered Iris in a dim, secluded corner of the lot.
“You messed with me behind my back! I’ll kill you when I get my hands on you!”
Iris said with a cold smile, closing her car trunk with a soft, definitive click, “Good! That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
She pulled a baseball bat from behind her back.
At the sight of the bat, alarm bells blared in Ryan’s head. “What the hell? You… you dare hit me?”
Before he could finish speaking, Iris swung the bat with all her strength, connecting with his ribs.
She pinned him to the ground instantly, dislocating his jaw with a sickening pop to silence his screams, then dragged him deeper into the shadows and began beating him relentlessly.
Having survived ten years in the apocalypse, Iris had mastered countless forms of hand-to-hand combat.
She could kill an adult man in three precise moves.
But with Ryan, she was feeling merciful—relatively speaking.
She dragged him into the darkest corner and continued her assault for half an hour, shattering every bone in his arms and legs. Every blow was calculated to inflict maximum pain without ending his life.
After thirty minutes, Ryan lay motionless on the ground, his breathing shallow and ragged, barely clinging to consciousness.
Leaning against her car door, Iris kicked his limp body lightly, then bent down to fish his phone out of his pocket.
She pressed her foot firmly against his head and used his phone to call 911.
“Aren’t I nice? I even called you an ambulance. You should thank me,” she said, her voice cool and detached.
Ryan nearly choked on his own blood at her words.
Dammit! If only her foot wasn’t crushing his skull, he might have found some irony in her “kindness”!
“Fuck you…” he managed to gurgle out.
“Tsk tsk, so ungrateful. Looks like you’ll be joining your grandma in the hospital for a nice long stay,” Iris said, pressing her foot down harder. The added pressure knocked Ryan completely unconscious.
Iris cleaned up the scene, pocketing all of Ryan’s identification documents to ensure the hospital couldn’t identify him if they called the police.
She also transferred every cent from his accounts to her own phone, using his fingerprint to unlock the payment features.
Once that was done, Iris dragged his unconscious body to the bar district outside the parking lot—the same location she’d given to the 911 dispatcher.
It didn’t take long for the ambulance to arrive. Iris stood off to the side like a casual passerby, watching as the paramedics loaded Ryan onto a stretcher and drove away.
Calmly leaning against a lamppost, she used Ryan’s phone to send a message to his parents: [I got beaten up. Come find me at the hospital.]
After that, she sold Ryan’s phone to a small, seedy phone shop nearby.
Even if they called the police, it would take at least three days to trace the case back to her. By then, once the police linked Ryan’s whereabouts to her, the apocalypse would have already begun.
From Ryan, Iris had gained an extra 30 thousand dollars.
With this money, she bought more supplies, clearing out several shelves at a convenience store outside the mall and loading the items into her car.
Just as Iris was about to drive away, there was a loud thud—a man collapsed onto her car hood.
Iris’ eyes darkened. Moments later, a group of fashionably dressed young men and women walked over, laughing and joking as they lifted the man up.
“Sorry about that, miss! My friend’s wasted!” one of the men, who had a tattoo snaking up his arm, explained, waving a hand dismissively at Iris.
After hoisting the unconscious man to his feet, the group stumbled away, their laughter echoing through the parking lot.
“Fuck. Leo passes out after just two drinks! And he kept bragging that he could drink a thousand cups without getting drunk!”
“I remember Leo used to hold his liquor way better!”
“Must be marriage weighing him down. His wife has sucked him dry!”
Their laughter faded into the distance as they walked away.
Leaning against her car window with one hand, Iris watched them leave, her gaze lingering on the young man being supported in the middle.
His head hung low, his body stiff as a board, and his hands—dangling loosely by his sides—were an unnatural, ashen pale.
Suddenly, the young man jolted awake.
“What happened to me?” he mumbled, his voice slurred.
“What happened? You got wasted, that’s what!” one of his friends teased, clapping him on the back.
“You’re such a lightweight! How much did you even drink?”
“I’ve been stressed with work. I need to go home,” Leo Lane said, pushing away his friends’ hands.
“Go home? No way! Let’s keep drinking! We’re not leaving until we’re dead drunk tonight!” another friend insisted, dragging him toward the bar district.
The group continued walking away, their chatter and laughter growing fainter.
Iris grew even more contemplative, a chill settling in her chest.
She pulled out her phone and checked the date.
Today was the 9th.
In her previous life, the zombie virus had broken out on the 11th.
The apocalypse was just two days away—August 11th.
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
