Chapter 653: Chapter 663: Not A Hero (Part 3)
Don stood just inside the bunker doorway while Ash slowly lowered the handgun.
Her fingers still trembled faintly around the grip despite the relief that had crossed her face moments earlier.
Sweat stuck strands of hair against her forehead while exhaustion sat heavily beneath her eyes. The bruising along her neck looked darker up close beneath the bunker lighting.
She exhaled hard once before speaking.
"When everything went to shit upstairs, I grabbed my gun and came down here," she said while gesturing vaguely toward the people behind her. "Most of them just followed whoever was moving first."
Don’s eyes moved briefly across the room again.
Whoever had been lucky enough to reach the bunker level before the apartment complex fully collapsed into chaos.
Ash rubbed one side of her face tiredly before continuing.
"At first it was fine. People were just hiding in the rooms and trying to stay quiet." Her expression tightened slightly afterward. "Then somebody screamed somewhere..."
She paused.
"I think I blacked out for a bit too," she added quickly. "Then..."
The memory visibly bothered her.
Don noticed it immediately.
Keen Eye caught the tiny reactions across her face without effort now. The slight tightening around her eyes.
The discomfort sitting beneath the exhaustion. Her breathing shifted faintly when she remembered it.
Not lying.
Just disturbed.
Ash swallowed once before continuing.
"After that, people just... lost it." Her voice lowered slightly. "Started fighting each other. Screaming. I heard gunshots at one point." Her grip around the handgun tightened unconsciously. "Then people started killing each other."
Several people nearby lowered their eyes.
Nobody interrupted her.
"I didn’t actually see it," Ash admitted. "I managed to get here and locked the room before things got worse."
She glanced briefly toward the heavy bunker door behind Don. "But you could hear it through the walls."
The room stayed quiet afterward.
Don finally shifted his gaze elsewhere.
Toward the tied man sitting near the corner.
Middle-aged.
Expensive clothes originally, though now wrinkled and stained with dirt and blood.
Bruising darkened one side of his face while dried blood sat beneath his nose and along his upper lip.
His wrists remained tightly restrained behind his back using heavy zip ties.
He looked exhausted.
Humiliated too.
"What about him?" Don asked.
Ash’s expression changed immediately.
Irritation pushed through the exhaustion fast enough that even several others nearby glanced toward her afterward.
"That fucker," she said flatly.
She gestured toward the tied man with the handgun still hanging loosely in her hand, though she didn’t raise it directly toward him.
"When people started panicking outside, he wanted everyone to open the damn door and make a run for it." Her jaw tightened. "Straight into whatever the hell was happening out there."
The tied man stared downward without speaking.
"I stopped him," Ash continued. "Then he tried taking my gun during the argument."
One of the older men sitting nearby gave a tired nod in confirmation.
Stocky build.
Blood-stained shirt.
A shallow cut wrapped poorly along one forearm.
"She’s telling the truth," the man muttered. "Would’ve gotten everybody killed."
The tied man still didn’t defend himself.
Didn’t apologize either.
He simply sat there breathing quietly through his nose while keeping his eyes on the floor.
Before Don could respond, several others began speaking at once.
"Did the military secure the building?"
A young woman holding a sleeping child against her shoulder asked the question first. Her voice shook badly despite how tightly she tried controlling it.
Another older man sitting farther back leaned forward afterward.
"Are there more infected things outside?"
"Did rescue teams finally arrive?"
"Can we leave now?"
Then one of the teenage boys stepped forward slightly near the supply shelves.
He looked exhausted.
Scared too.
But hopeful enough to still ask.
"Are you here to save us?"
The room quieted immediately afterward.
Even the mothers holding children looked up fully now.
The injured men straightened slightly despite themselves.
Every eye settled onto Don.
His gaze moved slowly across the room in return.
Keen Eye automatically picked apart details faster than he consciously processed them.
An elderly woman leaned weakly against the wall near the far corner while clutching a kitchen knife she clearly lacked the strength to use properly.
One child still had dried tear streaks visible across both cheeks beneath the blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
A mother nearby held a screwdriver like a weapon while exhaustion dragged visibly at her posture.
Over fifteen people.
Too many.
Don already knew the answer before the question had fully settled across the room.
He couldn’t save them.
Not here.
Not with infected still moving throughout the city.
Not with his own body still recovering from everything that happened on the rooftop.
And definitely not with a group this large attracting attention the moment they tried moving.
His jaw tightened briefly.
Then relaxed again.
He looked toward Ash.
"I only came for you," he said plainly.
No cruelty sat behind the words..
Just fact.
Ash blinked.
Relief crossed her face first.
Quick.
Instinctive.
Someone had actually come for her.
Then confusion followed immediately afterward.
And after that—
Something heavier.
Her eyes shifted slowly across the bunker room. Toward the children sitting beneath blankets. Toward the exhausted mothers. Toward the teenage boy still standing there waiting for a different answer.
"What about them?" she asked quietly.
The question carried something unfamiliar beneath it.
Conflict.
Like part of her hated herself for even asking.
Don looked at her for half a second longer than necessary.
Brief surprise crossed his thoughts.
Ash.
The same woman who looked out for her own interests. Treated most things like one long inconvenience.
And somehow—
She cared.
The thought passed quickly.
There wasn’t time to dwell on it.
"Let’s go," Don said instead.
Then he turned toward the bunker door.
One of the men near the back suddenly stepped forward.
"That’s not fair!"
Mid-thirties.
Athletic build in the way gym regulars often looked. Strong enough physically, but not someone used to actual violence.
His grip around the fireplace poker in his hand had gone white-knuckled from stress alone.
"You can’t just take her and leave the rest of us!" he snapped. "What kind of hero does that?!"
Several others murmured agreement afterward.
Fear started turning outward now.
Becoming frustration.
Anger.
Desperation looking for somewhere to land.
Don stopped near the doorway.
Didn’t turn around.
"I’m not a hero," he said evenly.
His voice sounded tired more than anything else.
Flat.
Honest.
He wasn’t trying to sound cold.
The world had simply hammered the lesson into him too many times already.
Then he added quietly—
"If you follow us out, I can’t guarantee your safety. Not one of you."
The room stayed still afterward.
A few people looked ready to argue further.
But something about Don’s tone stopped them.
Maybe the blood still dried across his attire.
Maybe the complete absence of hesitation in his voice.
Either way—
Nobody stepped forward again.
Don didn’t say the rest aloud.
Didn’t need to.
The memory already surfaced on its own.
Ebon Crest.
The boy.
His mother.
People he’d tried protecting.
People too slow to survive the kind of world outside now.
People whose deaths still replayed inside his head every time civilians asked him for salvation he couldn’t provide.
He wasn’t repeating that mistake.
Not tonight.
Not while his muscles still ached beneath healed injuries.
Without another word, Don stepped into the corridor outside.
Ash hesitated behind him.
He heard it.
The pause.
When he glanced back briefly, he found her looking toward the children one last time. Especially the youngest among them.
Her expression tightened slightly afterward.
Then hardened and followed him out.
The bunker door closed behind them moments later.
CLACK~!
The bunker corridors stretched ahead beneath flickering emergency lighting while long shadows dragged across the reinforced walls every few seconds whenever the power fluctuated again.
Ash stayed near Don while they moved.
Closer than she probably realized herself.
Her breathing remained controlled, though still slightly too quick beneath the quiet.
Every sound made her eyes shift instinctively toward corners, doorways or dark intersections ahead.
The loud-mouthed bartender version of Ash barely remained now.
Tonight had burned most of that away.
In her place stood somebody who fully understood how near death had gotten.
Don led the way upward without speaking.
Back through the same routes he’d already cleared.
Past the loosened stairwell access.
Past maintenance corridors and bypassed locks.
At one checkpoint he rerouted emergency power briefly through an exposed control panel while the augmented overlay mapped the safest sequence through the building’s partially failing systems.
Ash asked nothing.
She simply followed while keeping her gun raised whenever necessary.
As they climbed higher through the darkened apartment complex, Don’s thoughts shifted elsewhere.
Toward G-Tech.
That was the destination now.
No more unnecessary detours.
No more distractions.
Ash was alive.
Charles had the Monclaire network backing him now.
The city itself continued collapsing around them, but that no longer mattered to Don nearly as much as it once might have.
He’d fought enough already.
Killed enough.
Bled enough.
The mission had changed.
Survival first.
Everything else second.
’I’m not a hero,’ he thought quietly while stepping through another darkened service corridor.
Heroes saved everyone.
But heroes also died trying.
So Don kept moving.
And Ash stayed close.
