My Only Protector Is a Killer - Chapter 2
In reality, the girl was actually sweating cold beads of sweat behind her smile, silently chanting, ‘Come on, take the bait. Come on.’ She had no idea—even in her dreams—that the man had seen through her mind and was sneering beneath his hood.
Thinking that her plan had succeeded brilliantly, she delivered her triumphant line.
“I can pay you back plenty in return.”
She could feel sweat trickling down her throat now. Knowing that her neck could be sliced by that machete in an instant, her smile still bore a streak of pure terror.
The man found it ridiculous and pathetic that she might have conjured memories of her first wet dream in puberty. She was no innocent schoolgirl in a carefree coming-of-age film. She was a prostitute, discreetly hitching up her skirt with nothing underneath, luring him.
Though he sneered beneath his hood, she—unable to see inside—grew anxious at his complete lack of reaction. He strode over the bodies he had felled in layers, trampling them underfoot, until he found what he sought.
Ammunition, fuel, and food. In this ruined world, the three most valuable commodities now lay in his hands.
True to the cult’s practice of amassing wealth through human trafficking and slave labor after the end of the world, the warehouse was well stocked. First, he shoveled bullets and magazines into one backpack and then canned food into another. From a few steps behind, where she stood mesmerized by the pantry, he tossed her several cans.
They were the very cans she had longed for—lentil beans, soup, and ham.
“……!”
She stared, unable to believe her eyes, at the cans landing in her hands like unattainable treasure, then stared at the back of his head as though drilling a hole through it. He wedged his machete back at his waist and flexed the rippling muscles of his arm. One headlock from that arm would kill instantly.
The girl suddenly recalled all his nicknames and froze. Yet the gulp she gave was not from fear but hunger.
Before he could snatch them back, she decided to devour them. She popped open the ham can first and drank the broth like a sublime elixir. With no tool to lift out the meat, she greedily scooped it with her hand. Spotting a pristine bottle of purified water nearby, she snagged it. He could easily have stopped her, but he seemed willing to allow at least water.
She ravenously consumed the meat fat she hadn’t tasted in ages and the clear water that didn’t taste metallic. It took her less than ten minutes to finish the ham, soup, and beans. Eating so fast made her throat feel clogged, so she downed three bottles of the expensive water. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a lavish, indulgent meal—maybe months, maybe years. It was one of the top three feasts of her life.
Patting her slightly bulging belly, she collapsed on the warehouse floor. The messy evidence of her gluttony lay beside her, but she didn’t care. Food in her starved stomach felt like life itself. Only then did fatigue wash over her, and she realized how much energy she’d wasted trailing the machete-wielding man. Though she had fought for survival, her body, weakened by three days of starvation, struggled to keep up with his stride.
She forgot entirely, for a moment, that the man who had kept her so on edge stood just a short distance away. Or rather, she let her guard down.
Lying supine, she gazed dully at the ceiling—until a shape approached that snapped her half-closed eyes wide.
The man’s enormous shadow fell over her entire body. Her eyes rolled as she took in the looming form above her. What was stuffed so solidly in the front of his pants that he feared fully revealing it? Knowing how wide her eyes went in disbelief, he slowly tugged down his zipper.
She had promised to pay him handsomely. And so he exacted his full price.
From the moment she begged him to stop until she passed out and lay limp—and long after—he clung tenaciously to her, mouth fixed on her most intimate part.
What began that afternoon before dusk… did not end until midnight. When she briefly came to, she saw darkness outside and, in that moment, succumbed to unconsciousness again.
