Page 59 of The Last Sanctuary
She took an unsteady step backward, toward the hunting rifle lying where it had landed when Rex knocked it from her hands. Her backpack lay crumpled on the flagstone beside the gun.
In one swift move, she crouched, seized the rifle, and leaped to her feet.
Damien tightened his grip on the handgun. He started to swing it in her direction, wariness and apprehension on his face.
She lifted the rifle slowly but kept the barrel aimed downward. “I’m picking it up. That’s all.”
He nodded tightly. “You were supposed to run,” he said, his voice accusatory. “You weren’t supposed to still be here!”
She trembled all over. Her voice shook. “Iwasrunning. Untilyoucaught me.”
“That was out of my control. I thought you were already gone, so it wouldn’t matter how hard we looked. You were supposed to be gone. That’s not my fault.”
A fresh jolt of anger gave her the strength to keep standing. She bared her teeth. “You were there. I saw you. You were shooting at the wolves. Shika, Echo, and Titus are dead.”
His face darkened. “I had no choice.”
She gave a furious, disbelieving snort.
“I shotatthem—I didn’t hurt any of them myself. I swear it.”
“Once again, you were there and did nothing. You might as well have killed them with your bare hands.” At the mention of hands, she remembered her own. Dismayed, she stared down at the blood staining her fingers, her fingers clutching the gun.
The blood of the man she’d just killed. In self-defense, but still. She was a killer now. Like an animal caught in a trap, willing to gnaw its own paw off. Willing to do anything to stay alive.
Acid burned the back of her throat. She wiped her hands fiercely on her cargo pants. Dark streaks marred the cloth. She let the anger rise up, let it drown out the grief and fear and revulsion. “And Gizmo? What’s your pathetic excuse for murdering him?”
“Rex shot him first. He was suffering. There was no way he would have survived that. I put him out of his misery, and you know it.”
In some small part of her brain, she knew Damien’s shot was a mercy killing. He’d ended Gizmo’s suffering. All the same, she hated him with a blazing intensity. Seeing him standing therenext to Dekker and Vaughn while they killed Shika and Titus and Echo—it had felt like a betrayal.
She barely knew this guy, and yet, in this bewildering, hostile new reality, she’d thought she had an ally. She’d been desperate for a friend.
He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Look, I can’t act weak, okay? I have to play a part. If I don’t, they’ll abandon me—or kill me.”
“So what? Just leave.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Looks that easy from where I’m standing.”
His gaze dropped to Rex’s body, then swiftly snapped up again. He met her eyes. “Ivan Vaughn is my uncle.”
She stared at him.
“My dad’s brother.”
“Your last name is Vaughn,” she said dully. “Damien Vaughn.”
“He came for me.” His voice was strained, his eyes hooded. “Please, you have to understand. I lived in Alpharetta, a suburb of Atlanta, with my parents and two little sisters. I am—was a sophomore at Emory University, studying engineering. I… I wanted to design cars. Atlanta was one of the first cities to fall. It was hit hard and fast because of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“Almost three hundred thousand passengers a day passed through that airport, spreading the virus with every cough and sniffle and sneeze. People masked up immediately, they did the usual social distancing stuff, schools and businesses shut down, just like the other pandemics. This one was different. It is different. It’s a super-virus like no one has ever seen before. It took out just about anyone and everyone.”
“I know.”
He continued like she hadn’t spoken. “Early on, we sequestered ourselves, even when we ran out of food, even when the water turned off. We heard sirens all day long. And then we didn’t. My mom made us separate into our bedrooms, into different parts of the house. She divided the food, water bottles, and toilet paper, and she had bought tarps and duct tape and sealed up the ductwork, and all around our doors and windows. She said if one of us had already contracted the virus, maybe the rest would survive. We didn’t want to do it like that, but she insisted. My mom was small but fierce. It was awful. Hearing them getting sick, one by one. The vomiting. The moaning in pain. The weeping. I was in that house with my dead parents and my dead little sisters for days.”
He didn’t look at her, didn’t meet her gaze. He stared off into the mist, eyes glazed and distant, recalling the horror. “I thought I was going to die, too, just like them, the fevers, the coughing up blood, writhing in agony, my insides melting like jelly. But I didn’t. I guess my mom’s actions saved my life.” His voice went hollow. “Lucky me.”
