The intense moment between Damien and Stan was like a stand off...
The flashing police lights were too far away to penetrate the gloom. A single, failing sodium lamp flickered a block over, casting long, sickly yellow shadows across the cracked concrete. The air was thick and heavy, reeking of diesel exhaust, damp trash, and the sharp, hot copper tang of fresh blood.
Damien was slumped against a rusted dumpster at the dead end.
He had dragged his broken body through the industrial maze on sheer, animalistic adrenaline and the fumes of his newborn cultivation, desperately hunting for a rat hole to crawl into.
He had found the dark, but he hadn't found safety.
His left leg was folded beneath him at a sickening, impossible angle.
One trembling hand was clamped over a shattered collarbone, while his other arm lay uselessly across a gut wound. His dark jacket was heavy and slick, and a wide, black pool of blood was steadily creeping across the concrete toward the drainage grate.
