Hope (2 page)

Damon thought about what the world had once been like. There
was a time when every child got an education. He had been taught to fight and
defend himself at a young age. His mother hadn’t been able to read or write.
There were people who were able to read. He’d glanced in books at the pictures
he’d seen and wished he could read. It looked like some of the books held a lot
of information.

He’d have liked to see what money felt like and to have
tasted pizza. There had been a recipe book hidden under a load of rubble
showing a picture of a pizza. The picture alone was mouth-watering. He did not
have a lot going for him other than his muscle and willingness to help the
cause of rebuilding their area.

There had once been laws and legislation, with police
officers who enforced the laws and judges who punished crime. Glancing around
him, Damon couldn’t even picture it in his surrounding area. There was no law
apart from the law made up for the four areas. Don Michaels owned Area One of
New York while three other men owned the other parts.

Damon bent his head watching the cracked pavement as he
walked. Most of the people knew who he was and stayed clear of him. Working for
Don Michaels and having a reputation for being a “Mad Dog”, he constantly got
laid, and being near women had its bonuses. He preferred the women who worked
for Don to the women he passed on the street. With Don’s women he didn’t have
to fear getting stabbed in the back for the clothes he wore. A street-walker
would take what they could get. They were unpredictable, and worse, they didn’t
give a shit. When he was fucking he didn’t want to have to watch his back.

Circling round the block, Damon stopped at an apartment
building. The top part of the block was in serious need of some repair work,
and the bottom few floors were decent enough to walk on. He knocked on doors
and dished out the small plastic bottles of moonshine, pocketing the books that
Don had requested when he was done.

He never drank the moonshine that Don distributed out of the
club. The shit was potent, unlike the stuff he served at the club, and it made
a man lose control. After years of working closely with the stuff, he refused
to be part of that world. His own world might be shit, but at least to a point
he had control.

Once he’d made the transaction he left the block and made
his way to his own place. He lived in an apartment block on the borderline to
Jordan
’s
territory.
Jordan
was a hardnosed criminal and the worse of two evils. He was also the leader of Area
Three.

The security on the entrance door was shot. Damon walked
through and walked up the flight of stairs. Living on the top floor helped with
his fear of small places. He could go on the roof that overlooked the city. It
gave him a feeling of the world being much bigger.

By the time he got to the floor before his own, he stopped.
A woman was screaming through the walls for help. For some reason he couldn’t
explain he paused, his foot perched on the step leading to his own floor.

“Please, stop!” the woman yelled. He heard the distinctive
sound of male sniggering. Damon might work in a sex bar for a guy who sold
women, but he never forced himself on any woman. A rapist was still the lowest
of the low in his books. With the world the way it was going, women were
becoming fair game.

Damon didn’t like it. They couldn’t protect themselves
against criminals or gang members. The women he’d met did what they had to in
order to survive.

“Let me go.”

Earlier in the week he’d seen a young woman move into his
apartment building. At the time he’d not gotten a good look at her. Women
should know better than to be alone in apartment blocks like this. If other men
had found her alone, which they obviously had, she’d have been picked off in no
time.

You’ve got to
do something. You can’t leave her alone to fend for herself.

He let out a sigh of frustration and then walked toward the
sound of the screaming woman. Several doors along the corridor had been broken
into. When he came to the closed door where the screams were loudest, Damon
stopped.

What the fuck
are you doing? This is not your fight. You’ve got that book Don wants, and you
shouldn’t be doing crap like this. If you ruin this book then you will be the
one that is sorry.

Someone else
can take care of her. You don’t need to.

“Please, stop it. Please.”

The distressed cries undid him. No woman deserved to be
hurt. He knocked on the door before he gave himself chance to back out.

Damon heard the sound of shuffling, and the woman’s mouth
must have been covered. A guy wearing a black sweater with a hood over his head
answered the door.

“What the fuck do you want?” the man asked.

“I heard some noise. You’re not from around here, are you?” Damon
asked. With the wars that raged the population had been struggling to increase.
Lack of medical care and the issues from the M3 had made it hard for the people
to overcome some of the simplest illnesses. He knew most of the people in Don’s
area. Those he didn’t know were soon gone.

“I don’t give a shit
who
you are.
Get lost. She’s ours.”

Damon’s knuckles were badly bruised, and they were starting
to throb. He felt his anger rise at the disrespect the boy was showing him. He
ran his fingers through his thick black hair, and then he struck out at the
younger man. Grabbing the cord hanging around the man’s neck, he tugged him to
his side, slamming the man against the wall. Damon then grabbed him around the
neck and walked inside the room.

What he saw made him sick to his stomach. The woman’s arms
were bound behind her back. Her pants were pulled around her ankles, along with
her knickers. One of the men held her down on the bed. Her ass shone red from
their aggression. He couldn’t see her face, but he’d seen enough to know he
wanted to kill every single one of the bastards.

One of the men closest brandished a knife.

Damon laughed. His hands were his deadliest weapon. He’d
killed several men with his hands in the fighting ring.

“What the fuck are you doing? She’s a whore.”

“I don’t give a shit
who
you are.
You’re on Don Michael’s turf. I’m Damon Wright,” he said.

All the men around him paled. He had a bit of a reputation
for being a mad dog. That was the nickname he’d been given in the ring, Mad
Dog.

“Who are you?” Damon asked. He personally didn’t give a shit
who
they were, but he needed to know who was poaching
on Don’s land. He’d be reporting them to Don the next time he saw his boss. No
one from a different area attempted to rape one of Don’s women. They were all
Don’s property in one form or another.

“Jordan’s,” one of them muttered. They all put their weapons
away. The man in his arms stopped struggling. It would be so easy to snap his
neck.

In the early days he wouldn’t have thought twice about
killing him. Now, he wanted all the men gone.
Jordan
was a sick fuck, and
bringing him to Don’s doorstep with an unauthorised killing could be deadly.

“Get the fuck out,” he said.

Each of the men walked past him. Damon kept his gaze on them
refusing to back down. He threw the man out of the apartment door and watched
them all disappear before he moved toward the bed.

He walked toward the bed and saw she was bound to the surface
and couldn’t move.

Going to where her face lay, he looked into her scared blue
eyes. Her hair was matted over her face. He moved the strands out of the way.
She whimpered, trying to pull away from his hold. “Don’t be afraid,” he said.

She tensed, waiting for him to do whatever he was going to
do. He pulled a knife out of his pocket. The woman cried out and tried to pull
away. The men had put a gag over her mouth to keep her silent.

He reached over her cutting the bonds holding her in place
and then her bound hands. Putting the knife in his pocket, he helped her to her
feet. Her hair was the lightest blonde he’d ever seen. He knew she didn’t dye
it because hair care products were no longer available.

Going to his knees in front of her, he pulled up her
knickers. Her legs were shaking, and he couldn’t help but admire her shape.
Damon loved beautiful women, and the woman in front of him was a beauty. The
woman had curves that would make any man melt with pleasure.

Pulling her pants back up around her waist, he buttoned them
up and stood. She rubbed her wrists. He saw the red welts surrounding her
delicate flesh. He cursed watching her flinch away.

He removed her gag and tucked her hair behind her ear. She
was so tiny compared to him. She looked fragile as if she was going to break at
a moment’s notice.

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice sounded scratchy. He stared
at her a few seconds before nodding his head.

“You know it’s not safe for a woman to be alone in a place
like this.” Damon pulled out the pipe he kept on him at all times. He sparked the
tobacco up inside and inhaled. Tobacco was one of the few pleasures available.
 

The mystery girl wrinkled her nose. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Those men are just the beginning, sweetheart. The moment
they know an unprotected female is around you’ll be on everyone’s list to get
to.”

She shuddered and sat down on the hard surface she’d been
bound to only moments earlier.

“I’d rather be alone than put myself at another’s mercy.”
She rubbed her hands together. He saw she was shivering from the cold. Sighing
in frustration, he pulled his jacket off and placed it around her shoulders.

Damon noticed she was trying to hide her feminine body away
from him. Nothing could detract from her gorgeous tits and ass, and he loved
looking at naked women. The woman had a body to die for. There were too many
women who had lost their shape and beauty to years of hardship.

He knew this woman before him hadn’t suffered much yet. Her
eyes still wore a glint of innocence. She’d not been alone for long.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty.”

Ah, she was a runaway. Most of the women from families were
kept until they were twenty-one or sold to a man who paid for them. The
families were the term they used for the few remaining groups of people who
were literally families. Most of the families were the ones working on the
farms that were instantly set up when the survivors of the wars moved from
below ground. Farms had become a necessity as most people wanted rid of the M3
control. Some, like him had no family left because of the flu. There were not
that many people within the city. Being around Don and his club was similar to
being in a family.

“Who did you run away from?”

She shook her head, rubbing her arms.

“What’s your name?” he asked, going for an easier topic.

“Penny.”

“Let me guess, no last name.”

Penny didn’t say anything else. He took a long pull on his pipe
and stared around him at the room. She’d been moved in only a week, and he
could already see a feminine touch. He moved toward the door intending to leave
her to whatever she needed to do. Pausing at the door, he took one last look
back at the woman who’d nearly been raped only moments ago.

Cursing, he moved around her small space and gathered all of
her belongings. She clearly was a family runaway.

“What are you doing? Put that down.” She tried to pull the
bag from his fingers. Damon wouldn’t let go of the bag. Penny hit out at him.
He caught her hand and slammed her against the wall. There was a flash of pain
across her face, which quickly left as he stood in her space.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Damon placed his hand across her neck. He saw the panic in
her eyes and ignored it. She clearly didn’t see the danger she posed to herself
by being alone.

“I could snap your neck right now.”

“Why don’t you?”

He stared into her eyes and was struck by his depth of
emotion for her. She was no one to him, and yet he didn’t want to hurt her.

“Do you have any idea what would have happened to you if I
hadn’t come to you tonight?” he asked.

She licked her lips. Her gaze remained on him. “It is not
hard to guess.”

“They would have taken it in turns. Five men against you,
you wouldn’t have stood a chance. They would have used you until you were
nothing but a shell for their fucking needs, Penny. Do I need to spell it out further?”
he asked, even though he couldn’t spell.

The colour left her cheeks. Her hand covered his across her
neck.

“I said thank you.”

Damon chuckled. “You’re really too innocent to be here.”

“What do you mean?”

He dropped the bag to the floor and stroked her cheek. Her
skin was soft.

“Those men will come back to see if you’re alone. They were
not done with you. I bet they’re downstairs wondering when I’ll be gone so they
can finish the job.”