Chapter 281
The building was otherwise silent, which made the shouting from below seem even louder.
Suzy did not need to listen carefully to understand what the men were saying.
After hurling a few more curses, they resumed their assault on the entrance.
The relentless pounding continued.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
The noise echoed upward, one strike after another.
Thomas shut the window again, muffling most of the commotion.
"Liam said Aaron and the others have already gone down there," Suzy said.
Leonard raised an eyebrow.
"If I remember correctly, there are four of them, right? They should be able to handle six people. Still, they moved pretty fast."
"They’re probably the reason those people came here in the first place."
A faint glimmer crossed Derek’s eyes.
"That’s true," Leonard muttered.
The insults being shouted downstairs carried obvious implications.
The only people who had been regularly leaving the building recently were Aaron and his group.
It was not difficult to guess that some kind of conflict had broken out between them and the people below.
Thomas turned toward Suzy.
"What do you think? Should we go help?"
The doctor brothers lived in the same building. If the entrance downstairs was destroyed, it would affect all of them.
In a sense, they were tied together whether they liked it or not.
Besides, because of Derek’s illness, Suzy still owed Bill a favor. For that reason alone, helping was the right thing to do.
Suzy made her decision without hesitation.
"We help."
She quickly laid out her reasoning.
The neighborhood now had a newly formed organization.
She was certain of one thing––she would never join it. That meant conflict between them was inevitable. Nor did she believe the organization would simply ignore them and allow them to remain independent forever.
If they were destined to become enemies anyway, then it made more sense to form an alliance with Aaron and the others now.
They all lived in the same building. Cooperation was the smartest option.
The three men listened carefully and all agreed. Everything Suzy had considered had already crossed their minds as well.
"Alright. I’ll head down first and see what’s happening."
Leonard was the first to respond.
After speaking, he went to his room and retrieved the long blade Suzy had given him some time ago. He weighed it in his hand, testing the familiar balance. He had been stuck indoors for so long that his muscles were beginning to feel rusty.
"I’ll come with you." Thomas stepped naturally to Leonard’s side and pulled on his coat.
Unlike Leonard, he did not bother carrying a weapon. With his strength and combat ability, fighting barehanded would already be more than enough to overwhelm most opponents.
"I’m coming too," Suzy said.
She wanted to see the situation for herself.
The moment he realized they were all leaving, Derek hurriedly spoke up.
"Then I’m coming too."
The thought of being left behind alone immediately put him on edge.
"No." Suzy’s expression turned grave. "You just recovered. Stay home and rest."
Derek’s lips instantly curved downward in dissatisfaction.
The system had already warned Suzy that the effects of the gray snow had not fully disappeared from his body. She could not risk letting him go outside. If something happened again, she would never forgive herself.
Derek looked thoroughly unhappy.
Suzy softened her tone.
"Besides, someone needs to stay here and watch the apartment."
She paused before adding gently, "I’m counting on you, Derek."
The moment she said those words, her voice became noticeably softer.
Derek’s expression changed immediately. The corners of his mouth lifted despite his efforts to remain stubborn.
"Fine." He finally relented. "But be careful."
"We’ll be back soon."
With that, Suzy, Thomas, and Leonard headed out.
Derek remained standing at the doorway, watching them disappear down the stairwell.
Only after his gaze could no longer follow them did Leonard quietly mutter to himself.
Derek was surprisingly easy to appease. A few gentle words from Suzy, and the kid surrendered instantly.
Suzy, Thomas, and Leonard hurried downstairs.
The lower they descended, the louder the commotion became.
The group outside was still shouting curses, their language growing increasingly vulgar and aggressive. Yet when the three of them reached the eighth floor, the noise stopped abruptly.
The men downstairs had suddenly gone quiet. The abrupt absence of sound felt almost unnatural.
Suzy unconsciously slowed to a halt. The moment she stopped, Thomas and Leonard did the same. In the dimly lit stairwell, the three exchanged puzzled glances.
"Did they... finish already?" Leonard asked, blinking in surprise.
The sudden silence was strangely unsettling.
Suzy shook her head. "No idea. Let’s keep going and see."
There had been no sounds of fighting.
No shouting.
No struggle.
The group below had simply fallen silent all at once.
Suzy was genuinely curious about what had happened. Without another word, the three continued down the stairs.
Soon, footsteps drifted up from below––several sets of footsteps, uneven and unhurried.
Along with them came the sound of conversation and an occasional disdainful snort.
"We let him off easy last time, and now he actually thinks he’s important. All that nonstop yelling downstairs was getting annoying."
"You should’ve dealt with them properly the first time."
"I was trying to avoid making a bigger mess."
A click of the tongue echoed through the stairwell.
"At this point, they have nobody to blame but themselves."
The voices grew closer with every passing second. Their words bounced off the concrete walls, becoming clearer and clearer.
Whoever was speaking was heading directly toward them.
The voices sounded familiar, and Suzy had already figured out who it was.
"Looks like we don’t need to go any farther," she said quietly.
Barely had the words left her mouth when two figures appeared around the landing below.
It was Aaron and one of the twins, Elijah. The conversation they had just overheard belonged to them.
Each man carried a modified hand crossbow. Suzy’s gaze immediately settled on the weapons. Tiny droplets of fresh blood speckled the metal limbs. The stains were small and easy to miss unless someone looked closely, but they were unmistakably recent.
So that was why the shouting had stopped so suddenly. If her guess was correct, these two had already dealt with the troublemakers downstairs.
Suzy studied them carefully. Ironically, the ones who seemed startled were Aaron and Elijah. The sudden encounter had clearly caught them off guard.
Elijah reacted the most dramatically. The moment he looked up and spotted the three of them, he stumbled backward several steps, nearly losing his balance altogether.
He had heard people coming down the stairs. What he had not expected was to look up and find himself face to face with them.