Page 60 of The Last Sanctuary
“I’m sorry,” she said. It was genuine. What a useless word. The most useless word ever invented. She could see the grief etched on his face, sharpening his features.
“I was trapped in that death house for five days, three days after I’d run out of anything edible. I was afraid to leave, afraid to contract the virus, obviously, but also because of everything else that was happening, with all the rioting and the mobs. People were so scared, they panicked. Some of them had watched their entire families suffer and die within days. They were out of their minds with panic and grief. In some places, especially the big cities like Atlanta, people started killing other people. By then, the cops were dead or had fled. There was no one to stop anyone from doing whatever they wanted. They were robbing their neighbors for their food, shooting them if they fought back. Theykilled anyone who coughed or breathed wrong. Everyone was so afraid. It was like… like everyone went crazy, all at once.”
Raven shuddered. “That’s awful.”
“It was… apocalyptic. And then my uncle came,” Damien said. “He fought his way through a riot and dragged me out of that house, and he saved me. I’m alive because of him. I owe him everything.”
Damien wanted her to sympathize with him. A part of her did. Another part remained hard as stone. “He sounds like a real winner, your uncle.”
“He’s a criminal. I know that. I get that. But—he’s not as bad as you think. He has a code. He doesn’t usually kill women and children.”
Incredulous, her eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “Usually?”
“Trust me. There are worse alternatives.”
She remembered the look on Dekker’s face back at the pharmacy. His flat black eyes as he blew Carl’s face off for no reason at all. How he’d looked at her like she was a meal to be consumed, or trash to be disposed of.
“Do you think any of that matters to Carl? To all the other people he’s killed?”
Damian’s jaw pulsed. Emotions flitted across his face—anger, resignation, something like sadness. “I’m not your enemy.”
“Hard to believe from where I’m standing.”
“I could’ve shot you just now, but I didn’t, did I?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I told you. I’m not a killer.”
But I am.She pressed her trembling hands against her thighs. They wouldn’t stop shaking. “And yet I still find that hard to believe.”
“I’m just trying to survive like everybody else. That doesn’t mean I like what I have to do.”
She regarded him with narrowed eyes, still wary. “I don’t understand you.”
He gave a helpless shrug. “I do what I can to help, when I can.”
“As long as it doesn’t cost you anything. Right?”
He glanced away, stiffening, that muscle in his jaw pulsing. He turned and met her gaze. There was an odd look in his eyes. Part angry. Part ashamed. “You’re right. I’m a coward.”
“Then we agree on something.”
“Maybe.” There was no sarcasm or defensiveness in his voice. Only a weary resignation. That shadow of shame again. “I guess so.”
Something squeezed in her chest.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then prove it.”
“Okay. I will.” He holstered his gun, then lifted both hands, palms out as if beseeching her to trust him. “I am, see? Like I said, I don’t want to hurt you.”
Yeah, right. She didn’t believe it for a second. She couldn’t allow herself to believe it, believe him. Could she? Her weapon lowered a fraction.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Unless your Uncle Ivan is around, you mean.”
