Page 90 of The Last Sanctuary
She licked her swollen lip and spat out the blood caked between her teeth. “Go to hell.”
Vaughn sat against the wall outside the tiger’s cage. He held a hunting knife. The long sleek blade gleamed as he flicked it back and forth between his large hands. “I’m a reasonable man, you’ll find. One of the more reasonable ones left in this world.”
She tried to move. Her stomach lurched, a surge of acid burning the back of her throat. She sucked in her breath, her jaw stiff as a rusted hinge.
As her eyes adjusted to the flickering dark, she made out more distinctive details. Vaughn stretched his legs languidly out in front of him. Next to him, on his right side, lay a familiarshape. Her backpack. The top rim of the hoverboard stuck out slightly.
“That’s mine.”
A flash of white teeth. “Not anymore, it’s not. To the victors go the spoils, though you threw a wrench in that when you burned the storage shed and all that food.” He set the knife in his lap and unfolded something she hadn’t noticed before. “What’s this map for?”
“None of your business.”
“Hmmm. This leads to somewhere important. Doesn’t it?”
Acrid rage stung the back of her throat. She wanted to vomit. He’d stolen her map, too. “It’s nothing. It was my father’s. I just wanted something of his, that’s all.”
“You’ll tell me in time.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“I’d wager this is where you were headed before we took your wolf. Somewhere with more food, I’d bet, if I were a betting man.”
“Go to hell.”
“You said that already,” Vaughn said. “You know, when it all goes to hell, it’s not necessarily the strong who survive. It’s not the prepared. Not even the ones who saw it coming. The ones who survive are the ones willing to do anything, to anyone, at any time, to keep breathing. There is no moral code in the jungle. No mercy on the savanna. There are only predators and prey.”
Even rolling her eyes hurt. “Sounds like a steaming pile of B.S. you tell yourself in the middle of the night when you miss your mommy.”
Vaughn chuckled.
Cautiously, Raven eased herself into a sitting position. She felt her face, wincing at the swelling around her left eye, the split lip, the blood dried in a thin line on her chin. She lowered her hands and gingerly pressed her ribs. A spasm jolted throughher ribcage. Throbbing, fiery needles stabbed and sliced through flesh and muscle and bone.
She hissed through the pain. But she could move, at least. There was that.
“We are going to break you in ways you cannot even imagine,” Vaughn said.
“I won’t break.”
“I assure you, everyone breaks with the right pressure applied. It will take time. And it will be horrific for you.” He paused, as if to let his words sink in, let the horrors of her imagination take root, dig in deep.
She dug her dirty fingernails into her palms to keep from screaming. She refused to let him see her fear.
“The gentleman in me would rather not contemplate such a fate for you, considering you are of the weaker sex.”
Raven snorted.
Vaughn continued like she hadn’t made a sound. “It is out of my hands, you see. You killed Dekker’s brother. He has the right to retribution, however he sees fit. It is our code. Our law.”
“Kill or be killed, right? That’s the new law, according to you. Because there are no more laws. Because there is no one left to enforce them.”
“The old ways are for the weak. In this new world, the only law is the law of nature. And nature survives. Nature kills. It is the natural state of things.”
People have killed each other since the beginning of time. It wasn’t anything new. But now… now there was nothing to stop men like this from killing and killing and killing again. To kill anyone and everyone, according to their whims.
There were myriad ways a person could hurt and kill another person. Other species killed their own kind—in battles for dominance, territory, and the right to mate.
When Raven was seven, the refuge had taken in several chimpanzees. Six months later, two of the chimps conspired to assassinate their alpha.
