Nuclear Dawn Box Set Books 1-3: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series by Kyla Stone

Author:Kyla Stone [Stone, Kyla]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Paper Moon Press
Published: 2019-06-13T22:00:00+00:00

29

Logan

Logan watched Dakota as she reached up as if to retie her sagging ponytail, remembered not to touch herself, and dropped her arms.

She saw him looking and stared back at him, defiant. But her face was still pale, her pupils huge. Her hands were trembling.

This wasn’t like the woman with the dead baby, whose life she ended out of pity. She’d killed a man in cold blood. She’d killed him for Logan.

Another wave of nausea struck him. He bent, hands on his thighs, letting the blood rush to his head. His ears were still ringing. He tasted the coppery tang of blood in his mouth, between his teeth.

Everything inside him felt sharp and jagged as broken glass.

“Killing isn’t like the movies,” he said haltingly. “Unless you’re a psychopath, taking a life always has a cost.”

“I know that.”

She said it like she really did, like she had experience with killing. Once again, he found himself surprised by this girl.

“There’s always a consequence,” she said. “But if it protects someone I care about, then I’ll gladly pay that price.”

He looked at her. Really looked at her. The waning sunlight highlighted the strands of red in her hair, the sharp planes of her face, the glisten of her wide dark eyes.

He’d noticed her the past few months working the tables at the Beer Shack—but only like he noticed everyone, sizing them up for potential threats then letting them go in his mind.

She was just another young, dark-haired girl in a city of millions.

But now he saw things he hadn’t before. Her long, messy auburn hair spilling past her shoulders, several damp strands curling against her cheeks. The dust caking her thick eyebrows, her solid jaw jutting proudly, those hard, flinty eyes cutting straight through him.

She was beautiful the way a piece of cut glass was beautiful—and just as sharp.

Dakota narrowed her eyes. “Glad you finally grew a conscience back there.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Logan dropped his gaze and kicked at a pile of rubble with his boot. He hesitated, working his jaw before asking the question. “Don’t you feel guilty?”

“For this scumbag? No.” She raised her chin as if daring him to contradict her. “Not even a little.”

He was never sure which was worse: living with the guilt or not feeling it at all.

He’d never doubted his decisions, his choices, even deriving a vicious pleasure at justice served, at taking vengeance into his own hands.

He’d felt no guilt or remorse for any of the men he’d hurt or killed, criminals and thieves and murderers, all of them—not until the mother and the kid.

He hadn’t wanted to care. He’d tried to convince himself it was an accident, a mistake, tried to put it from his mind the way he’d done a dozen times before.

It hadn’t worked.

He still saw the tiny figure that haunted his nightmares—the saggy Spiderman pajama bottoms, the thin arms clutching a ratty stuffed bear. And that small face framed by black curly hair disheveled from sleep, those wide dark eyes staring back at him, so young, so trusting.

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