To lay his eyes on the sky he hadn’t seen in over six weeks. A sky he never thought he’d see again.
But most important of all was to finally talk to the man that had orchestrated his rescue while not delirious with fever and pain. A man that had protected his home and those he loved while he was unable to. The man that he had thought of as his enemy, who was now the reason he lived.
Nick stepped forward and Euan caught his scent. His palms itched to touch the waves of his hair, the dusting of stubble on his chin. But Nick avoided Euan when he bent, cupped Kira’s skull and gently placed a kiss on her forehead. Her eyes fluttered closed at the tenderness.
Then he turned his back and was gone.
Euan hung his head.
He had destroyed it. As effectively as Rodgers had destroyed his face, Euan had shattered the bond between himself and Nick. The pieces of their love lay about their feet, and Euan had no idea where to even begin in order to place the jagged shards back together.
The squeeze in his hand brought his focus back to the present. Kira pressed her lips together when their eyes met. No more words were said, no more words were needed. The cavern between them echoed with enough resentment and antagonism to fuel generators for eternity. Placates were of no use here, only action would see a victory.
But he would fight, he would battle and he would win. Distance was simply the path before the journey. Kira’s hand in his, he took his first steps towards freedom and the first steps on the journey towards closing the gap between them. He would walk, he would run. He would crawl if he damn well had to. He would do anything to seek forgiveness and atone for his mistakes.
Anything. Everything. Nothing would stand in his way. Even the end of the human race.
Chapter 2
Euan
Every story had its villain, unless that villain had been the hero all along. Euan sat on the veranda in a white plastic chair that didn’t bend with his weight. It was an odd sensation, to not be nervous about the fragility of furniture that he chose to sit on. He ran his palm over the arm, the plastic was stained yellow with time and the weather. His feet were stretched out before him, the morning sun warmed his dark fatigues. It felt so good just to allow the light to touch his skin, the air to caress his face, the scent of lavender, grass and woodland to tease his nose.
It was moments like this he had thought he would never enjoy again. He had courted death inside that log cabin. He had fought against a tide of his own making. The rip made by a whirlpool that had already stolen from him his faculties, had torn the life from a boy he had sworn to protect. In that wooden structure, Euan had broken every promise he ever made. In that wooden structure he’d lost his honour, his integrity, and almost his life.
If that had happened, it would have meant the ruin and demise of those he loved the most. Nick and Kira.
He opened his eye and forced himself to watch the men prepare them for their departure.
Annoyance, frustration, displeasure. These emotions he could manage.
During his infirmity, Euan had been forced to relinquish leadership. He’d been saved by men that were under his enemy’s command. The rat-a-tat of gunfire that haunted his dreams were the outcomes of a single man’s orders.
Euan had repaid his enemy a debt. For the safety of his daughter, Mickey-O, founder and leader of Nirvana, ruler of minion and man, cohort to the devil had ordered his men to see Euan freed.
Mickey-O, a man Euan still had trouble believing was there, was a man who had saved him, who, apparently, had been saving him since they first met, now walked up to him. His boots crunched on the gravel, and Euan’s eye narrowed.
His rival had filled out since he’d seen him in a fever-induced haze. Where Euan had atrophied from his injuries, Mickey-O had strengthened. His daughter by his side, his men around him, food in his belly, sleeping safe, he had improved, until he was the man Euan had first met in Nirvana.
But his black eyes were now haunted. He’d lost children to the monsters that reigned this earth. His family had survived the terrors of a plague only to be taken from this earth by man.
‘I hear this morning went well,’ Mickey-O said without a smile as he found the twin to Euan’s chair and pulled it until it sat next to him. He eased himself slowly down, hands on knees, his dark eyes never leaving his soldiers.
Euan grunted in reply. His hand had instinctually gripped the arm of the chair. There was a small measure of comfort when the plastic buckled under his grip.
‘I also hear that boy of yours is still pissed,’ he added casually.
This time, the plastic groaned as his grip increased. Euan let go reluctantly, rolled his shoulders, and tongued the hole where he missed his molars.
Mickey-O continued despite that anger and irritation that lingered in the air. ‘You’re going to have to face it sooner or later. That wound has festered while you’ve been out, let it chafe for much longer and it will burst.’
‘Don’t need your advice,’ Euan returned. ‘And I don’t need you to tell me something I already know.’
Mickey-O’s focus never left that landscape before him. The soldiers were disassembling the rabbit hutch, the animals
