Reborn: Apocalypse Tyrant Endlessly Pampers Her Sickly Lover novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Keys

Veda takes the pharmacy keys from Damon's guards with a fire axe, and Damon says she swings it like she has done it before.

At seven in the morning, Damon stood in the main atrium and told nine hundred people the storm had been luck.

"A good guess," he said, with a rueful smile at Veda. "A very good guess, and we're grateful. But the list stands, and the pharmacy stays with security. It's safer that way."

The atrium was three decks high, with a glass dome over it and a fountain that had stopped running.

Everyone who had slept in the ballroom stood around the rim of it, listening.

Veda stood in the middle, still in last night's jacket.

"That's not what you said," she said.

"I said a lot of things at midnight." He spread his hands. "I'd just watched a wave take a lifeboat. Let's be reasonable."

A murmur went through the crowd.

The woman who had kissed Veda's hand folded her arms.

"You made a deal in front of everyone," she called out. "She was right."

Damon kept smiling.

"I'm grateful to her. But one lucky guess doesn't make her a doctor."

He had done it so well.

He hadn't lied, and he hadn't raised his voice.

He had simply made breaking his word sound sensible.

Last time, Veda had stood here and said nothing, and then lain awake for a week and counted the people she'd have to bury to get her way.

This time she had one plain sentence ready.

"I'm taking the keys."

She walked across the atrium to the wall behind the fountain, where a red glass case held a fire axe.

She broke the glass with her elbow.

Somebody gasped.

The axe came out of its bracket heavier than she remembered, and her hands closed around the handle.

Damon's smile finally slipped.

"Veda."

"You said I could have them if I was right."

"Veda, put that down."

"No."

She walked past him, out the double doors and down the stairwell to Deck Three.

Behind her, nine hundred people followed.

The pharmacy was a glass-fronted room off the medical bay, and two of Damon's guards stood in front of it with their hands on their belts.

They were young.

One of them had been a lifeguard on this ship.

Last time, she had put an axe into that lifeguard's shoulder on day thirty-one, and he had not got up again.

She stopped five feet from them.

"Move," she said.

"Ma'am, we have orders."

"I know you do."

She lifted the axe.

Both of the guards flinched, and the crowd behind her went silent.

She swung once.

She did not swing at them.

The blade went through the frame of the pharmacy door at the height of the lock, and the whole thing split with a crack like a gunshot.

The door swung open on one hinge.

She pulled the axe out and set the head down on the carpet.

"Anyone else?"

Neither of the guards moved.

One of them stepped aside.

Then the other did.

A murmur passed through the crowd behind her.

Celia Fenn was standing at the back of the pharmacy with her arms wrapped around herself.

She had been there since before the axe, Veda realised.

She had not called for anyone.

"Doctor," Veda said. "Show me his drug."

"Veda, I don't think that's wise."

"Show me."

Celia's eyes went to Damon, who had followed them in and was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed.

Then she walked to the back shelf.

She took down a white box, and a smaller one, and put them on the counter between them.

Veda opened the box.

Nine vials lay in a foam tray.

"Nine weeks," Celia said quietly.

"That's what's on the shelf?"

"Yes."

"All of it?"

"All of it."

Veda searched the doctor's face.

There was something on it that did not belong to a woman telling the truth, and something that did.

She could not tell which was bigger, and she let it go, because now Damon was clapping.

Three slow claps, from the doorway.

"Well," he said. "That's a performance."

He stepped into the room and looked at the broken door and the axe and the pale faces of his own guards.

When he looked back at Veda, he was not smiling anymore.

For the first time since the water came, she was seeing the real man behind it.

He was interested.

"I'll honor the deal," he said, and his voice was light. "You can have the keys. Tobias comes off the list. We'll talk about the rest later."

"We'll talk about it now," Veda said. "I want a second key. The doctor has one, and I have one. Nobody else."

Damon's eyes narrowed.

"That's a lot of trust to ask for."

"It's a lot of medicine to lose."

The crowd murmured.

Somebody at the back said, "Give it to her."

Another voice said, "She saved my kids."

Damon looked around the room.

He took in the faces, and he did not like what he saw.

"Fine," he said. "Two keys."

He pulled a ring off his belt and tossed it at her.

She caught it one-handed.

He tilted his head and studied her.

"You know something," he said quietly, just for her. "You swing that thing like you've done it before."

Veda looked at the axe on the carpet.

She had done it more times than she cared to remember.

"Lucky guess," she said.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend