Chapter one
It is the eighth time in under two weeks I wake from the depths of sleep, only to find myself balancing precariously on the edge of the roof. My hot pink toenail polish winks in the dark as I blink down at the traffic rushing hundreds of feet below my outstretched foot. An icy wind snakes across the high-rise apartment tower, blowing my hair in tangled strands around my face and penetrating my thin night gown. I shiver against it, my heart lurching uncomfortably and my head swimming as I take in the sheer drop to the pock-marked pavement below.
With a slow breath through my teeth, I force myself to look out instead of down. To appreciate the way night has softened the crumbling edges of the city, shrouding the worst of its disrepair. I breathe in the stale air, willing my heartbeat to slow and cataloguing the details of my dying world until the terror of waking at its edge subsides enough that I’m able to move.
Once, this area was a hub of the thriving city night life. Music poured out from nightclubs and bars and spilled into the slick,paved streets, the sounds of spirited laughter and ribald jokes peppering the air as the evening stretched into morning.
But that was before the plague.
There hasn’t been music in these streets, or anywhere else in the world, in years. There is no one left to play the instruments or write the songs; no one who remembers how to feel a rhythm pulse through their veins and electrify their body.
I shake my head for even thinking of it, the fanciful thoughts surely the result of teetering somewhere between dreams and reality. Of once again waking from a nightmare only to find myself steps away from falling to my death.
The neighborhood is still busy after dark, but now it’s a sterile sort. There is no song or laughter, but there is rhythm—the distinct fall of military boots. Soldiers come and go at all hours, switching shifts or heading out on patrol. The product of my apartment building’s proximity to one of the government’s many Amelioration camps.
Even now, at nearly midnight, they move in a steady beat, fanning out to other parts of the city to keep watch for any signs of the plague.
None of them glance up at the woman poised to jump.
“What the hell, Willa?” Michael’s voice jolts me so violently from my thoughts, I wobble precariously far over the edge, before lurching backward to land hard on my ass.
The base of my spine smarts against the concrete. I glare up at him, waving his outstretched hand away in agitation. His face is pale in the moonlight, worry and alarm leeching his usual color as he shoves his hand in his pocket and watches me rub my ass with increasing concern.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t sleep here,” I mutter irritably, climbing to my feet.
Michael stares at me with his mouth ajar, and then scrunches his face with a harried sigh. “What was that? Were you—goddammit, Willa, were you about to jump?”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Instead, I brush past him and duck through the door leading to the residences below like it’s possible to outrun Michael’s good intentions. And indeed, they’ve increasingly begun to feel like prison bars to slip between.
“If I was, it wouldn’t be any of your business,” I reply lightly over my shoulder, descending the cold stairs on bare feet.
Michael follows me down from the roof, and to my infernal irritation, into my apartment. “This is serious,” he implores, the worry in his voice scratching at the back of my neck. “If you need help, I can—”
I spin around so abruptly Michael rears back, and when I set him with a sharp gaze, he visibly flinches beneath it. As handsome as he is, the man has always had a softness inside him that chafes my skin and sets my stomach roiling. I don’t do soft—other peoples’ or my own.
“If I need help you canwhat,exactly? Tell the military the woman you fuck occasionally is having self-harming thoughts? Get me locked up in one of those prisons with the rest of the unsound?” Michael blanches, and I laugh cruelly. “Only a family member can recommend a citizen for commitment,” I remind him with another laugh. “And as I have none of those, and fuck buddies don’t count, feel free to get the hell out.”
I turn on my heel and stalk into the kitchen, something acidic bubbling beneath the surface of my skin. I’ve allowed myself to become far too complacent lately, relaxing each well-set boundary slowly enough, I’d hardly noticed. Whether it was laziness or sentiment, it doesn’t matter—it ends now. If Michael cares enough about me to turn me in for amelioration, the tryst has long run its course.
Rolling my shoulders in an attempt to ease some of the gathered tension, I take a leveling breath through my nostrils and pour myself a generous measure of whiskey. Every muscle in my body is tight and achy, and my stomach has yet to settle from the shock of waking on the roof. Again. My eyelids feel like they’re coated with sandpaper, and I try to remember the last got a proper night’s sleep.
Perhaps it’s the lingering adrenaline fused with ever-present exhaustion that’s made me so reckless, even when I learned long ago, reckless is something I cannot afford to be.
Tilting my head back, I swallow the liquor in one large gulp before finally turning back to Michael, who’s closed the door and frozen awkwardly in the middle of my living room. The whiskey burns pleasantly in the back of my throat, easing a bit of the frigid cold still lingering. I don’t know how long I was out in the elements before I woke, and the unmoored sensation of grasping at lost time settles beneath my skin like shards of glass.
“Like now, Michael. Get out now.”
He blinks slowly, and with his long lashes and soft mouth, I’m so forcibly reminded of a fawn, I wonder why I ever found him attractive. Neatly cut blonde hair, warm brown eyes, a well-kept body. I used all of it to soothe an ember of need, just as I’ve used so many before him. But in the end, none of them have ever been able to touch the burning hole inside me.
It hasn’t grown, nor extinguished. It’s only faithfully remained, flaming through my center until I became the hollow thing I am now. Bored. Numb. Empty.
“Willa,” he pleads softly. My lip curls in distaste, and when he steps toward me in earnest, I match his strides, keeping my distance.
“My sister was one of the unsound. I didn’t turn her in and look what happened.” Michael’s face twists in anguish. “I know that we’re not—that you don’t…” He shakes his head with a sigh.“I know I’m not your boyfriend, but please, Willa…let me help you.”
Michael reaches a hand toward me, but then seems to think better of it, curling his fingers into a fist midair before dropping it back to his side. But not before I see them tremble.
The tremble is enough to make me feel guilty for a fractional moment. But as he continues, the guilt is replaced with a familiar numbness, one that’s been my constant companion for years. It rarely abates, not even when a man pleads so sincerely to allow him the chance to save me.
