CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Damien was still lost in his own world, welcoming the pain that the drink the day before has brought him. he rolled over in his bed, laying an arm across to his eyes to shield it from the sun.

There was an incessant knocking in his head and he couldn’t concentrate for a good five minutes before the knocking became louder. This time it wasn’t in his head.

He stood up, padding around the house quietly for fear of upsetting the elephants that were currently holding a march in his head. No one knew that he lived here, so who could be knocking so early in the morning?

The swung open when he unlocked it to reveal a very pissed Patty carrying a grocery bag. The remaining sleep that lingered in his eyes cleared up.

“Good morning…” he stammered, afraid that she had come to finish her attack on him “What are you doing here?” he asked consciously.

“Peace offering?” she held up the grocery bag and offered him a smile that Damien could tell was forced but not entirely vicious.

“This way,” Damien led her to the kitchen where she unloaded the grocery, taking out a few vegetables. She kept standing when she was done, fidgeting with her fingers and unable to look Damien in the eye.

He rested his elbow on the counter and looked at her when she said nothing “Is there anything you came here to tell me?” He pushed, hoping that it would prompt her to say something.

She shifted her weight from one leg to the other as if deciding whether or not to speak. “I came here to apologize,” she finally said, looking up to meet his gaze. “I know I was out of line, and it was wrong for me to act out like that and accuse you in public. I know you didn’t kill Jane, she was just at the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

Damien sighed. Patty didn’t know how much he needed to hear those words. After their run-in at the café, the guilt of Jane’s death had come back to hit a thousand times more so knowing that Jane’s sister at least, no longer blamed him for her death was a lot more relieving than he thought.

Patty cleared her throat when he didn’t speak for a while before he turned his attention back to her.

“I totally forgive you. I mean, I blame myself all the time for what happened to her. And you had every right to do what you did. I mean, she was your sister. I didn’t know her for a long time, but it hurt when I learned of her death, so I can’t imagine what you, her sister, are going through.”

“I miss her,” Patty said, tears dropping from her eyes and down her cheek.

“I do too, and I’m sorry. I totally forgive you for what happened,” he said, shedding a few tears of his own. it was a wonder how he still had tears left after crying all through the night before finally falling asleep.

“Come here,” Damien said, opening his arms when she began to cry uncontrollably. She hugged him, needing most of the comfort that he was offering.

His tears spilled over, dropping onto her shoulders as they held onto each other. “Lauren died yesterday,” he blurted out. He needed to tell someone that, the thought of it choking him up.

Patty released herself from his hold “What?”

He nodded slowly “She was leaving for her home when my jet blew up in flames.”

“The same way Jane died,” she finished.

He looked away, afraid that Patty might actually start seeing him as having a hand in her murder.

“How can they both die by an explosion?” she asked more to herself than him “It feels like there’s more to the story, someone might be after you, Damien.”

She was damn about right. Nathan was after him, his life, and everything that he cared about.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Damien. Who would’ve thought that after yesterday, I’d never be able to see her again,” she mused to herself.

“It’s funny how life is you know,” she said to him, smiling through her tears “You never know the last time you would see someone. They could be here today, this minute and the next thing, poof!” she made explosion noises “They’re gone.”

They stayed in his kitchen for a while, each grieving their losses until Patty decided that she was hungry and they both had to eat. Damien was about to decline when his stomach grumbled, embarrassed he agreed to let Patty make breakfast for the both of them.

It was scrambled egg with syrup, apparently, that was the only thing that Patty could make.

“Why the groceries then?” Damien asked, eyeing his plate “For a moment I thought you were going to make a full course meal,” he lamented.

“Oh…sorry about that.” She smiled sheepishly. “It was more of a peace offering than me actually volunteering to cook.”

He groaned but said nothing. Scrambled eggs were better than not having anything to eat at all. He cleared the plates when they were done and after the dishes, they were both in a much better mood.

She left minutes after, assuring Damien that she might come around so other times that it was sad Damien hadn’t spent much time with her family especially after Jane died. Damien missed Jane but he would never in a million ways want to spend more time with their family.

His phone buzzed bringing back his attention to it. It was Luke calling, Luke never called first. He connected the call on the first ring.

“We’ve found him,” Luke said, sounding like he had been running and out of breath.

“Send the files immediately,” Damien said, hanging up. He didn’t know how Luke found Nathan’s hideout, but he was glad he had. Besides, that was what he paid him for. He hurriedly had his bath and put on his clothes; he was out in no time.

*****

Luke drove them to an abandoned building that looked like it had been deserted for centuries. Damien had a feeling that the building would collapse on them if they dared to enter.

“Are you sure it’s here?” he asked Luke, with disbelief written all over his face.

“Yes,” he answered, staring at the building too “He popped up on our radar and this was where he was headed.

Damien nodded, but there was something about the structure that creeped him out, it was almost like it was waiting for Damien to enter it so it could swallow him whole. He signaled for his men to enter first and check it out.

One of the men signaled for him to come in that it was strong enough to hold all their weight. Damien obliged, putting an extra gun at the band of his pants, he was going to end this once and for all.

He marched quietly. pointing his gun towards where he heard a noise but they were just rats running around and trying to scavenge for what they wanted to eat. The only other noise was their feet crushing dirt below their thick black boats.

They came up with nothing after searching the entire ground floor. He motioned for them to move up but the stairs were badly broken, they had to find a way up to other than the stairs that looked like they had been blown up rather than it being damaged for how long it had stood there.

Damien finally saw an elevator but he wasn’t sure if he trusted it enough to take them all upstairs, what if entering it was an ambush that Nathan laid for them, knowing that the stairs were broken.

“Think this thing still works?” he asked Luke.

“I think many things of this place,” he answered, looking around with disgust “But we have no other choice but to use the elevator. Hopefully, it’s not broken down like the rest of the building.

Luke pressed the elevator button and they waited. For a long time, there was no buzz from the elevator, so much for thinking that the elevator in a place like this would work.

“Let’s get out of here,” Damien said, disappointed “If the elevator is not working that means it’s not even possible for them to be here. How will they get up to whatever lab they had set up there?” he turned to Luke. “Are you sure it’s here?”

Luke answered in the affirmative. Damien sighed; he was back to square one. He called off his men but as they were leaving the elevator dinged. Damien froze and looked back at it, it actually worked.

He signaled for everyone to go back. When they got there, the elevator doors were already open. He carefully stepped in, followed by Luke and one of his men. He instructed the others to stand down and be on the lookout.

Damien pressed the button and for a while, nothing happened, but he was patient. After a few minutes, the doors closed, painfully slow at that before making a huge noise. Damien thought it was broken down and just as he was about to cry out in frustration, the elevator shook before it started moving up.

They pointed their guns at the door, anticipating Nathan’s men waiting for them because the noise from the elevator was enough to wake up the dead so surely Nathan would have been alerted before they even made it up.

The elevator finally dinged, coming to a stop on the top floor, the only place that looked like it had life in it. After much time the doors slid open and Damien consciously stepped out with his gun in front of him.

They were greeted by an empty space. Rats ran from every corner to hide from the intruders. They walked further in, stepping on debris as they passed.

Damien scanned the place, there were instruments and various machines lined up on one side of the room. There were also suspended tubes, which Damien knew Nathan used to use to perform his lab experiments.

That was the only sign of life that was there. Damien kicked an empty bottle that had been lying there, it skids a few inches off the ground before landing again with a thud.

“He’s not here,” Damien declared painfully, while his men searched the corners for any chance that there was a door hidden.

Damien was angry, he was fuming. There was clear evidence that at some point Nathan had set up his lab here but from the state of the room, you could tell that that was a long time ago. Maybe there was another hideout close to this one, if he was headed here that means he couldn’t be so far, or was he here to get something he forgot and left already?

Many questions buzzed his mind as his men kept searching. He knew that every second he wasted, something could happen to Harry. He was surely going to bring their son back, that was his promise to Lauren before she died and he was going to keep it.

He called off the search and watched Luke walk to him.

“It appears he isn’t here. I’ll search the building within close range to this place. If he was headed here then he won’t be far.”

Damien nodded, absent-minded and not paying attention. He thought of all the things that he would do to Nathan when he finally caught him and they weren’t all pretty.

After a few agonizing minutes, they finally made it downstairs with the elevator. He took one last agonizing look around before leaving.

What they did not know was that Nathan was there, he was indeed watching them from his screen and trying to smolder a laugh.

Perhaps if they had searched the ground floor properly, they would have seen a door engraved into the floor and covered with debris. For through that door Nathan had gone in and watched them, finally deciding that killing Damien now would put an abrupt end to his game.