Damian Cross: Almighty Apocalypse System

Chapter 3

Immediately Damien's hands curled into fists against the floor and his whole body started shaking, not from fear, not from pain, but from rage. "My father died when the apocalypse hit, he died instantly, but my mother, she lasted two more years, two years of begging you for help, two years of me working for you so you would give her a ring, and you let her freeze to death anyway."

"Your mother was weak," Clara said.

Damien's head snapped toward her and his breath caught in his throat.

Clara was looking at him now with her arms still crossed and her face completely calm. "She was weak and she was a burden and giving her a ring would have been a waste, we made the right choice."

Damien stared at his wife, the woman he had been married to for four years, the woman he thought he loved, the woman who used to hold his hand when things were hard and tell him everything would be okay.

"How can you say that?" Damien whispered.

"Because it is the truth," Clara said. "And now that we have the formula we do not need you anymore either."

The room went very quiet.

Damien felt something cold settle into his chest, something heavy and final. "What are you saying?"

Richard stepped forward and looked down at Damien like he was looking at a broken piece of furniture. "We are saying that your work here is done, we got what we needed from you, the drug formula is ours now, it is patented under the Whitmore name, and there is no record anywhere that you were the one who created it."

"That is impossible," Damien said. "I have notes, I have files, I have proof."

"You had proof," Julian said, speaking for the first time since Damien hit the floor. "But we took care of that weeks ago, every file you saved, every note you wrote, every test result, all of it is gone now, and the only records that exist show that Clara Whitmore developed the drug under her family's resources."

Damien's vision blurred and his breath came faster now. "You planned this."

"Of course we planned this," Richard said. "Did you really think we would let some nobody with no power and no name take credit for something this valuable? You were useful Damien, I will give you that, but useful things get used and then they get thrown away."

"You cannot do this," Damien said, his voice rising now. "You cannot just steal my work, I will tell people, I will go to the authorities, I will—"

"You will do nothing," Richard said coldly. "Because no one knows you exist, no one knows you have been living in this house, no one knows you are connected to this family, we made sure of that, you are a ghost Damien, and ghosts do not get to make threats."

Damien tried to push himself up one more time but the guard pressed down harder and pain shot through his ribs.

"Please," Damien said, and he hated how desperate his voice sounded now. "Please, I just want my ring, I just want to be able to leave, I will not say anything, I will not cause trouble, just give me the ring and I will disappear."

Richard looked at Margaret.

Margaret looked at Clara.

Clara looked down at Damien with something like pity in her eyes, but not enough pity to matter.

"No," Clara said simply.

Damien's whole body went still.

"We are not giving you a ring," Clara continued. "We are not giving you money, we are not giving you anything, you are going to leave this house, and you are going to disappear, and if you ever survive, don't come back, if you ever try to contact us, if you ever try to tell anyone what happened here, we will make sure you do not survive long enough to regret it."

Damien stared at her and something inside him broke.

Not his body, his belief.

His belief that people could be decent, that hard work mattered, that loyalty meant something.

All of it shattered.

"You are my wife," Damien said, his voice barely above a whisper now.

"I was your wife," Clara said. "But that was before I realized you were never going to be anything more than this." She gestured at him on the floor. "I am marrying Julian next month, we have been together for over a year now, and honestly Damien, you should have seen this coming."

Damien looked at Julian.

Julian smiled at him. "No hard feelings."

Damien's hands curled into fists again and his whole body started shaking, not from sadness anymore, but from rage, pure burning rage that filled every inch of him until he thought he might explode.

"You are all going to regret this," Damien said, his voice low and steady now. "Every single one of you."

Richard laughed. "Is that a threat?"

"It is a promise," Damien said, and he looked at Clara when he said it. "I will make you regret this, I do not care how long it takes, I do not care what I have to do, but I will make you pay for everything you did to me, everything you did to my mother, everything you took from me."

Immediately Clara's smile faded slightly.

For just one half second something moved across her face. Something that might have been fear.

Then it was gone.

She turned to her family.

“I can tell he is going to be a problem.”