THREE
AUBREY
For a while,things were good. I should have taken it as a warning that it wasn’t going to last.
I’d been broken after Bishop pulled me out of that facility—broken, cut open, abused, used—but he’d been there with gentle hands and soft blue eyes to put me back together until I felt like I was in the shape of a man. We both realized that whatever the scientists had done to me there was a thing that lingered—the cut that asshole had dragged down my back in an attempt to make me scream was already half healed by the time we found somewhere far enough away from the facility to shelter for the night.
It was an ugly scar two weeks later; a reminder of every bad thing Bishop had saved me from. He’d thrown away his entire life and everything he knew—every comfort and convenience the Order offered—for me.
He’d done it with a sweet smile and the promisethat someday… someday things would be different. Someday the Order could be different. Someday the world could change.
I should have known things were going to go to shit when Bishop and I settled into a little farmhouse we found a few miles out from where the facility had burned. We weren’t going to be able to keep the little bubble we’d settled into for very long.
We’d barely gotten out of that place without getting caught—apparently, most of the scientists had left the main area for their sleeping quarters at the opposite end of the facility, and Bishop’s squad wasn’t all that great at their jobs. They were drunk half the time and fucking prisoners the rest.
It had made it easier than it should have been for us to dump out barrel after barrel of flammable liquid and set it ablaze. All the doors had opened, just like Bishop said. I wasn’t sure if everyone got out alive, but by the time the flames had started crawling and the heat of the fire was licking against my skin through the jacket Bishop had put around my shoulders, I was already at my limit. My body hurt.
My soul hurt.
I’d done what I could. I didn’t know who made it out and who didn’t, but I really hoped that the asshole who’d crawled on top of me and cut me open had burned alive.
After that, I had two years—two years to fall in love, two years to imagine a world where there was something more than the rain, more than the greed of humanity and the feeling of being scared every night.
I had two years where emotions likelovereplaced myneed to seek out adrenaline and pain to push away my demons.
For a while, it seemed like Bishop’s arms could do that for me.
And for a while, we werehappy.
I think it all got fucked when we found the letter.
To Iris, With Love.
It talked about a place where two people could be happy. It talked about a place where the rain didn’t matter, and maybe things could be different. It gave us something to think about. Something todreamabout.
It gave me a reason to let my guard down long enough for the infected to swarm us while we were trying to scout the train station that led up to the resort in the letter.
Bishop pulled his tags from around his neck when he saw the rabid, dropping them over my head with a smile that should have warned me something was wrong. His eyes were sweet when they looked at me, and his lips were soft when they pressed against mine. It was probably because he knew there were so many of them we weren’t getting out of there—probably because he knew I’d die to keep him safe.
He had other plans.
That was the last time I ever saw him smile—that was the last time I saw him alive.
It was the first time Bishop ever hit me, and by the time I woke up, there was nothing left but blood and bits of bone.
It was the first time I knew having a heart wasn’t worth it, because having a heart meant knowing what it felt like for it to break.
EIGHT YEARS LATER
CHAPTER
FOUR
PHOENIX
“Are you fucking kidding me, Ben?”The angry voice drew my attention, swerving me from the path I’d been walking. I was out scavenging, scouting to see if there was anything worthseeingaround this shithole of a town I grew up in. Up until three seconds ago when I’d heard the voices shouting from a building to my left, I’d thought not.
“Why would I be kidding, Aubrey? Fuck, is that even your real name?”
