Chapter 1Queen Rising From The Ruins

Seventy-two hours until the next Scourge tide hits.

I pushed open the heavy steel doors of the Meta-Testing Lab. Holden was leaning against the peeling paint of the corridor wall.

He tossed me half a ration bar. "Let’s go. Debby arrives at the Citadel tonight. I need to be at the gates."

I caught the bar, took a dry bite, and looked at him. "Holden, I actually..."

"She’s a new Gifted," he interrupted, pushing off the wall. "By the way, I haven’t been entirely straight with you."

The casual tone of his voice made my chest tighten.

"The only reason I kept you around this long was because your healing abilities were somewhat useful to the Citadel."

The dry ration turned to ash in my mouth. I couldn't swallow. "What are you talking about?"

"Cara, you can't compare to her. From now on, stop telling people you're my girlfriend." He looked at me, his eyes devoid of the warmth that had anchored me for three years. "Debby is a Purifier. Starting today, she is the most vital asset this base has. You’re obsolete."

He reached out, catching my wrist. His thumb brushed my pulse point, a phantom gesture of a dead romance, his tone sickeningly innocent. "If it’s too hard for you to see us together, you can request a transfer out of the Core Sector. It’ll save us both the trouble of awkward run-ins. You won't have to be sad, and I won't have to deal with it."

He dropped my hand. "Anyway, what were you trying to say?"

I lowered my eyes, staring at my scuffed boots. "Nothing."

In the depths of my heavy canvas pocket, my fingers curled tightly around the crisp edges of my new test results.

It didn't say Healer.

It said Purifier.

For three months, the entire Citadel had been turning the wasteland upside down for the hope of humanity. And she had been standing right in front of him.

* * *

At dusk, Holden really did bring Debby home.

I stood in the shadows of the second-floor catwalk, watching the armored convoy roll through the reinforced gates.

He stepped out first. I watched the man I loved walk around the hood, open the passenger door, and place a protective hand over the roof frame so she wouldn't bump her head.

He used to do that for me.

Debby was younger than I expected. She wore her hair in two loose braids, and when she smiled, deep dimples bracketed her mouth. She looked devastatingly untouched by the end of the world.

The Citadel’s brass swarmed them.

Holden stood at the epicenter of the crowd. He cleared his throat, wrapping a heavy, possessive arm around Debby’s waist. He smiled—a brilliant, triumphant thing. "Debby is a Purifier, and she has graciously chosen to join our ranks. From this moment on, her word is my word. Her orders are absolute."

Purifier.

The word sucked the oxygen from the courtyard. A beat of stunned silence was immediately shattered by a collective gasp.

It had been three years since the Scourge wiped out the old world. Purifiers were ghosts, myths whispered around oil-drum fires. A Purifier didn't just heal; they eradicated the Blight from the bloodstream. They could pull the infected back from the brink of mutation. They were the holy grail of every surviving faction on the continent.

And now, she was standing in our dirt courtyard.

A few of the inner-circle lieutenants, men who prided themselves on knowing which way the wind blew, dropped to their knees. It started a domino effect. Ring by ring, the hardened survivors of the Northern Citadel sank to the ground in reverence.

Seeing this, a perfectly calibrated blush crept up Debby’s neck. She rose on her tiptoes, pressing her glossed lips against the pulse of Holden’s throat. "You're terrible," she whispered loudly.

The courtyard erupted in cheers and wolf-whistles.

I stared at the intimate curve of their bodies pressed together. It felt as though a phantom hand had plunged into my ribs and crushed my lungs. I wrenched my gaze away, a wave of pure, unadulterated nausea rising in the back of my throat.

Down below, Holden’s eyes swept over the cheering crowd. For a fraction of a second, his gaze flicked up to the second-floor catwalk. He saw me. And with the indifference of a man looking at a smudge on a windowpane, he looked away.

It was as if my presence—our shared history—was entirely irrelevant to the space he now occupied.

The welcome banquet was held in the Citadel’s Grand Hall.

I had planned to stay in my quarters, but Debby had specifically requested my presence.

"You must be Cara!"

The moment I walked in, Debby waved at me from the head table. Her voice was pitched just high enough, carrying over the hum of the room. Instantly, every pair of eyes in the hall snapped toward me.

I had no choice but to walk over.

On the table in front of her sat the base’s dwindling supply of hot, freshly cooked food—steaming rice, canned peaches, real meat. In front of my empty chair sat a tin cup of purified water and a single compressed ration block.

"Cara, I am so sorry," Debby said, pouting her lips in a grotesque pantomime of sympathy. "Hot meals are strictly rationed by tier now. With your current rank... this is all you’re allotted. You don't mind, do you?"

When I didn't answer, she leaned her head against Holden’s broad shoulder, looking up at him through her lashes. "Holden, I’m just following the rules... You’re not mad at me, are you?"

Holden chuckled, shaking his head. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. "Never. Whatever you say goes."

Satisfied, Debby giggled and turned her doe eyes back to me. "Oh, right! Holden mentioned you were a Healer?"

"A Healer... isn't that basically just a walking blood bag? That sounds exhausting." She sighed, feigning profound pity. "But it’s okay. You won't have to come to the Core Sector anymore. They’re desperately short on Healers out on the Perimeter. You’ll be... somewhat useful out there."

My fingers dug into the edge of the wooden table.

Debby peeked over her shoulder at the man beside her. "Right, Holden?"

Holden didn't even hesitate. "Yeah. The Core Sector belongs to you alone."

I remembered, with sickening clarity, the day he had said those exact words to me.

It was when the Citadel was first built. He had hammered the wooden sign for the Core Sector onto the door himself, turned around, pulled me flush against his chest, and murmured into my hair, “Cara, this place belongs to you. Only you.”

I had held onto that promise like a lifeline.

Only now did I realize that the promise was a template. The words remained the same; he just swapped out the girl standing in front of him.

"Fine. I'll pack."

I pushed back from the table, swallowing the battery acid burning in my throat, and turned for the door.

"Not going to eat, Cara?" Debby called out, her voice dripping with fake concern. "The food in Sector C is practically sludge. You should really take a bite while you can!"

As I pushed through the heavy double doors, I heard her voice shift into a whiny, spoiled drawl. "Holden, does she hate me?"

"No. She’s always been cold. Don't waste your energy on her."

Cold.

He could actually say that about me. The audacity of it turned my stomach.

The icy night air hit me the second I stepped outside, forcing me to pull my collar up.

When I reached the outermost edge of the base, I discovered someone had already moved my meager belongings into a dilapidated supply closet.

The bed was a makeshift cot. The blanket was so thin I could see the weave of the fabric through the moonlight. The corners of the room were piled high with rusted scrap metal.

The moonlight spilled across the concrete floor, stinging my eyes until they watered.

I slid down the rough concrete wall until I hit the floor. Pulling my knees to my chest, I reached into the depths of my pocket and pulled out the crumpled lab report.

I stared at it in the dark for a long, long time. Then, carefully, I folded it back up, and shoved it as deep into my pocket as it would go.