Chapter 69: Survival of the Fittest
"I... I just killed soone."
Damon didn’t respond imdiately. His eyes moved across Victor’s face, not searching for the words, but for what lived behind them. Regret, fear or sothing caught between the two.
What he found was neither.
Victor’s chest rose and fell heavily, but his expression wasn’t shaken. It was strained, as if sothing inside him were being held in place rather than breaking apart.
"...Who?" Damon asked quietly.
Victor’s jaw tightened. His gaze drifted past Damon’s shoulder, unfocused, as if the scene were still playing out sowhere just behind him.
"I only went for supplies." His voice was asured, deliberate, the voice of soone choosing words carefully, or trying to. "They ca out of nowhere. Two of them." A beat. "Fast."
His eyes refocused.
"If it weren’t for my healing, I’d have been dead the mont I stepped through the door."
Damon listened without moving, watching the small shifts in Victor’s face as the mory worked through him. The tightness around his eyes. The way his hands had gone still.
’Odd...’
They’d scouted that area dozens of tis. How had they missed a hostile presence this close?
Then a quieter thought surfaced.
’Eve’s group... Could it have sothing to do with them?’
They were supposedly nearby, had been, for so ti, yet there’d been no signs of them. The timing of this also seed wrong in a way Damon couldn’t fully articulate yet.
If he was right, their margin for error had just narrowed considerably.
"Good job," he said.
Victor blinked, caught off guard by the unusual praise.
Damon was already turning away as he continued. "Two fewer problems for the future."
His laidback deanour about the murder of two people wasn’t accidental. The world right now was purely about survival, and if Victor spent the next few weeks second-guessing himself, he would not survive.
Damon needed him to be sharp, there was no room for guilt.
He didn’t need to look back to know Victor was now following him, the sound of his footsteps grew closer with each second.
’Good, there might be hope for you after all.’
***
Damon and Victor walked back in silence.
The sound of their footsteps echoed through the early morning air, and though Victor’s limp had lessened, the weight of what he’d done still hung between them.
It was only when they reached the main area of the station that they ca to a stop.
"Thank you," Victor said quietly.
Damon didn’t turn around. "For what?"
Victor shook his head. "Never mind. Are you heading out today?"
"I am."
"Then I guess I’ll see you in three weeks."
"Try not to die."
With that, the two of them went their separate ways. Victor went back to his own group, while Damon had one stop before heading back to his room, Nyla’s door.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
There was a brief pause, then a hurried movent from inside.
When the door opened, Nyla’s face lit up the mont she saw him.
"Boss!"
She was wearing a pair of shorts and a cropped top, her usual kind of attire. Her hair was slightly tousled, suggesting that she’d been lying down.
Her excitent faltered almost imdiately.
Sothing flickered across her expression, a flash of colour rising to her cheeks as her gaze dropped. She fidgeted with the hem of her top, suddenly unable to directly look him in the eyes.
"I...uh..." She cleared her throat. "Do you... want to co in?"
Her voice ca out softer than usual, almost uncertain.
Damon, however, didn’t notice any of it.
"No. I need you to gather everyone up. We’re leaving in ten minutes."
"Oh." She blinked. "Okay. I’ll... yeah, I’ll get them."
The words barely left her lips before he turned and walked away, already focused on the next task.
Nyla stood in the doorway, watching him disappear down the corridor.
Her cheeks burned.
The mory had been looping in her head ever since that night, the way her armour had dissolved into nothing and the way her body had pressed against his when her mana gave out. The heat of his hands steadying her... The fact that she’d been standing there in nothing but...
She pressed her palms to her face and groaned softly.
’He didn’t even react,’ she thought, half frustrated, but also half relieved. ’Does he seriously not think about it at all?’
But she knew the answer.
Of course, he didn’t.
He was too focused, too tactical. Too... Damon-like.
She exhaled slowly, trying to steady herself.
’You really need to take responsibility for this, boss,’ she thought, even though she knew he never would.
Not unless she made him...
"No."
She shook her head at the thought before stepping back instead.
Ten minutes, she had no ti to waste.
***
With everything handled, Damon was ready to return to his room to get Kitsune.
’Hopefully she’s awake by now,’ he thought before swinging his door open.
’Shit...’ he cursed, seeing Kitsune still floating above the bed. ’Am I going to have to carry her?’
"I’d like that," she teased back in his head, and a mont later, her form changed.
POOF!
She landed softly on the bed in her fox form.
"You’re awake," he said, noting the extra tail behind her back.
"I am... but I’m still refining mana."
After quickly realising what she ant, Damon lifted her and placed her on his shoulder.
"Are we going sowhere?" she asked.
"Yeah, ti to get back out there."
Monts later, Damon was already outside, approaching his group, who had already been waiting.
Elias stepped forward, his expression heavy.
"I inford Axel’s sister," he said quietly.
Damon’s gaze shifted to him.
"She didn’t take it well," Elias continued, his jaw tightened. "But I stayed until she stopped screaming."
For a mont, the weight of those words hung in the air.
Damon nodded once, slow and deliberate.
"Thank you," he said.
Elias’s expression didn’t change, but sothing in his posture eased slightly.
The middle-aged man quickly fell back into the group, which Damon approached.
"I hope you had a good rest, because we won’t be coming back here any ti soon. If any of you die, you will be buried on the road... so try to stay alive."
The group was caught off guard by his remark.
Then the twins smirked.
Nyla’s jaw set with determination, and Elias simply nodded.
Amber was already moving before everyone else fell into step behind him, heading wherever he was taking them next.
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