Jenna's stubbornness surprised Elric more than he'd like to admit.
He'd thought the senator's pampered daughter—or was it the district chief's? Either way, the point stood—wouldn't last a single day without food or clean water. Based on everything he knew about spoiled rich kids who'd never experienced real hardship, he'd expected her to come crawling out of that room within twelve hours, maybe twenty-four at most.
But somehow, defying all his expectations and probably her own physical limits, she'd managed two full days.
Her will to hold out—to cling to her pride like it was a life raft, even at the edge of starvation—was something he genuinely didn't expect. It spoke to a core of steel beneath all that arrogance, a stubbornness that bordered on self-destruction.
He could almost respect it. Almost.
Until that moment.
The silence in the safehouse was broken by the faint creak of a door—that distinctive sound of old hinges protesting movement, echoing through the quiet apartment.
Elric looked up from his meal just as Jenna stepped out from the bedroom, moving slowly, almost drunkenly.
Her face was pale as paper, drained of all color and vitality. Her eyes were sunken deep in their sockets, surrounded by dark circles that made her look years older. Her lips were cracked and bleeding slightly, split from dehydration.
Her hair, once glossy and perfectly maintained—the kind that required expensive products and professional styling—now hung in tangled waves around her shoulders, matted in places with sweat and dirt.
She looked like a ghost of herself. A hollow shell wearing Jenna's face.
She stopped in her tracks when she saw them—Elric and Natasha sitting cross-legged on the floor like college students at a casual picnic, sharing a steaming bowl of instant noodles between them. The scene was almost absurdly domestic.
The smell hit her like a physical punch to the gut.
Savory broth, the chemical-yet-appealing aroma of seasoning packets, the faint scent of cooking oil and vegetables. Smells that had been background noise just a week ago now assaulted her senses with the promise of life itself.
Her throat moved involuntarily as she swallowed, trying not to stare, trying to maintain some dignity. But her eyes betrayed her hunger, her gaze locked onto that bowl like a drowning person watching a lifeboat drift just out of reach.
Then, like a starving animal following pure instinct that overrode all higher reasoning, she turned toward the storage corner—where Elric had deliberately, tauntingly piled crates of supplies in plain view.
Instant noodles stacked in cardboard boxes. Bottled water arranged in neat rows. Canned soup, bags of rice, packages of crackers. A treasure trove of survival in a world of scarcity.
Her body moved before her brain caught up, before pride could reassert its grip. She half-ran across the room, stumbling slightly from weakness, reaching out with trembling hands for a pack of noodles.
Her fingers were inches from the plastic wrapper when—
Clink.
A fruit knife flashed in front of her, materializing as if from nowhere, its tip gleaming inches from her chest. Close enough that she could feel the cold metal radiating against her skin through her shirt.
Elric stood there, having moved silently, his expression calm and cold as winter ice.
"These supplies aren't yours," he said flatly, his voice carrying no emotion whatsoever. "They're for me and my woman."
Jenna froze completely, every muscle locking up. Her voice trembled between anger and fear when she finally found it.
"You— you can't be serious. You've got enough food for weeks, and you can't even spare one pack?"
She glared at him, trying to summon that old arrogance, that entitled fury that had always gotten her what she wanted before. But the edge in her tone was gone—her hunger had already stripped most of her arrogance away, leaving only desperation wearing an arrogant mask.
Elric didn't answer. Didn't move. Didn't need to.
It was Natasha who broke the silence, her voice cutting through the tension.
"Spare her one pack?" she said, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back against the couch with a faint smirk playing at her lips. The gesture was deliberately casual, deliberately cruel. "You even know how much one pack costs now?"
Jenna blinked, confusion momentarily displacing hunger. "What?"
Natasha continued, her voice sharp and laced with venom that surprised even Elric. This wasn't the frightened woman who'd begged for food just days ago. This was someone who'd found security and wanted to defend it.
"It's the apocalypse, sweetheart. There's no money, no government, no delivery trucks coming to restock the shelves. You think people are trading noodles for friendship? For pretty smiles and family connections?"
She paused, letting the words sink in.
"You want to eat—then earn it."
Jenna's face turned red, the color flooding back in a rush of humiliation and rage. "You— you're enjoying this, aren't you?"
Natasha tilted her head, her smile widening into something almost predatory. "Maybe a little. You looked down on everyone before the outbreak—especially people like me. Called me a 'working woman' like it was an insult, remember? Guess karma came early this year."
Her words struck like knives, each one precise and intentionally cutting. Jenna's jaw tightened, her hands clenching into fists at her sides, but she couldn't find a comeback. What could she say? Everything Natasha said was true.
The air between them grew tense, with the smell of barely restrained violence.
Finally, something in Jenna snapped. Pride overriding reason, fury overcoming survival instinct.
"Fine!" she shouted, her voice cracking with emotion. "If you won't let me eat, I'll find food myself!"
She turned and stormed toward the door with as much dignity as someone could muster while half-starved and trembling.
Elric's voice cut through the air like steel scraped against stone.
"Don't."
A single word, but the weight behind it made Jenna freeze mid-stride, her hand hovering over the doorknob like touching it might burn her.
"You walk out there," he said, lowering the knife but not the threat in his tone—if anything, his quiet certainty was more frightening than any weapon, "you'll last an hour before the fog eats your lungs. Or something else does."
He took a step closer, his shadow falling across her. "You really think I went through the trouble of dragging you back here just to let you walk away?"
For the first time since emerging from the bedroom, real fear flickered across her face—not the fear of hunger or humiliation, but the primal fear of death.
Elric didn't shout. He didn't raise his weapon again or make any threatening gesture. But the quiet certainty in his voice, the absolute confidence with which he stated facts rather than threats, told her everything she needed to know.
If she left now, she wouldn't make it far. The fog would claim her, or the mutants would, or simple exposure and dehydration. And if she stayed, she'd have to bend that pride she clung to like armor, the last piece of her old identity.
There was no third option. No rescue coming. No way back to the world that had made sense.
Natasha watched the exchange in silence now, her cruel smirk fading.
She had wanted Elric to throw Jenna out, to make her pay for all her arrogance before the world ended, to watch her suffer. But watching him now.
And in this new world, that made him dangerous—and desirable in ways that had nothing to do with appearance or money.
"What the hell do you mean, let me go!"
Jenna's voice cracked, trembling with rage and fear in equal measure. Her knuckles were white against the doorframe, her entire body shaking as she glared at Elric with tear-filled eyes.
"You're not even giving me food—what, you want me to starve to death now?"
Elric stood a few feet away, calm as ever, the dim orange light of the dying world outside filtering through broken blinds and glinting off his eyes like ember.
"I didn't say you'd starve," he replied evenly, his tone almost conversational. "But you're not my woman. Which means you don't eat what we eat."
Jenna froze, her brain struggling to process the implication. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Elric took a step closer, his expression unreadable—not angry, not amused, just... decided.
"It means," he said slowly, making sure every word registered, "you can have what's left after us—what we don't finish. The soup we leave on the table. The water we use to wash."
His voice was quiet, but the cruelty in it was deliberate, calculated. This wasn't sadism for its own sake—this was breaking a wild horse, forcing submission through humiliation rather than violence.
The Magnitude of Humiliation
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