She wondered if they would colour her so crudely when she exited the vehicle.
Her hands were now pressed against the glass, condensation misted around her fingertips. When she removed her hand, the imprint disappeared, as if it had never been. Would it be the same for her? After they had ruined her, taken everything that made her whole, would her place in this world be removed as quickly and as readily as that ghost? It was in that moment that she realised how small she was. How insignificant. Billions had died. Billions and billions. Why did her life matter, her suffering more important, more vital?
It wasn’t. Except to two men. Two men who were on their way to find her, to save her.
She swallowed the ache that bloomed in her throat. It prickled the back of her eyes and stung her nose. It made her fists clench tighter.
Their destination was an enormous warehouse. A building that loomed before them, it blocked out the sky, where the clouds still twisted and turned, and held the sun at ransom. The door was a gaping maw, a dark omen that spelled horrors, mayhem and destruction.
Her gut cramped. She swallowed, but her throat only bobbed when there was no saliva in her mouth to take down. She was afraid. So very afraid.
The truck was brought to a halt. The two men in the front seat shared a glance but said nothing as they opened the doors and exited the vehicle.
Her door swung open, and even though she had been freighted inside the cab, outside was an impossible labyrinth of uncertainty. She could run, she could. But she’d get nowhere. Over the man’s shoulder, she saw others began to mill, to exit the dark portal and gather around them.
Her captor leaned in and she reared back. This was no man like the one that had snatched her. This was no inept bad-guy from a daytime movie. This man was evil, a deep malice that made up his bones, formed his muscles, clenched his mouth tight. His eyes were dark, nasty. They scanned her, assessed without wavering before he stepped back to give her space to exit the truck.
There was her chance. She saw it. He would likely even allow her to run, for a small time. She could speed off into the distance, and into the waiting arms of the horde that now hovered around the vehicle. They leered, they jeered. She saw the open mouths, the excitement, the anticipation. Their eyes glimmered, their lips sneered and their hands rubbed. They were waiting for her to attempt it. They wanted her to attempt it.
She wondered how many before her had taken the risk.
So instead she turned to the man who caged her and said, ‘Take me to him. Take me to Parker.’
The man’s sneer changed, he snorted at her attempt at bravery. She was a mouse, a little creature surrounded by every animal of prey. She was cornered, and he knew it.
One foot stepped out of the vehicle without her conscious thought. It hit the cement before it was joined by the other. She slipped out of the cab and stood as tall as her tiny frame would allow her. She often lamented her height, in this moment, the disparity between the man that rose over her and her smaller stature was severe.
As she faced the true reality of the current world, she understood all of Euan’s over-protectiveness.
Heavens, she missed them. As she scanned the hoard before her, she missed them with a yearning that almost crippled her. She felt the need for their touch, their embrace, their smiles in the muscles that suddenly seized, in the grip of her fingers on the door, in the taste of the ash on the wind.
She would die here.
She would die terribly here.
Their leers turned into catcalls. They gripped their genitals with filthy hands and thrust their hips her way. They licked tongues over cracked lips that hid rotten teeth. Their clothes were ragged and threadbare. Their faces were marred with dirt and their knuckles were bloody.
Kira had seen Euan spend enough time with his punching bag to know what fighting wounds looked like.
She took a step. Then two.
The sound of her boots as they hit the concrete was loud in her ears. So was her breath and her heartbeat. She pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin. They may kill her, but they would not see her cower. They would not see her afraid. Even if fear was all she felt.
The man that had driven her here, the one that had killed his four rivals, who wanted to hurt her, barked out a warning her terrified mind failed to comprehend. But whatever was said, it made the masses part.
They nipped at her like dogs. Mangy animals that scented a female they knew they could never touch.
It was the bold that came close enough to sniff. It was the fearless that attempted to fondle. That was until her captor lifted the handgun he had never let go of and shot the closest degenerate to her.
The jolt that shot through her could not be helped. The clap of gunfire, the accompanied ricochet of shattered bone, of obliterated muscle, of exploding blood vessels, meant that there was nothing to do except flinch.
But she didn’t cower.
Instead, she was covered in more gore, surrounded by minions of an evil dictator, with her ears ringing as she stepped over the body of yet another man she had just witnessed die.
She didn’t look. She couldn’t. She would vomit. It was a close call as it was. The blood that splattered her was warm. It dripped down her arms, down her throat to soak the neckline of her undershirt. It oozed between her fingers before it turned tacky. She clenched her fist and pretended the feeling wasn’t real.
The door of the warehouse was now before her. An infinite black hollow awaited to eat her, consume her, swallow her whole. Her captor directed her
