Chapter 1
Chapter One
Emilia
Six Years Later
Grinding down on top of Rayden, I throw my head back and moan. His fingers dig into my hips, holding our bodies together as I continuously push myself up before sliding back down, eyes closed, letting the sensation below my gut build and build—
“Come on, Mils,” he groans, fingers tightening, lifting me as his hips buck faster beneath me.
I happily oblige and quicken my pace as his length slams into me, fierce and unrelenting.
My arms wobble, losing their strength, and I collapse beside his head, elbows slamming into the mattress.
I roll my hips, a guttural groan spilling from his mouth as I do so.
“Yes, Mils… I’m gonna…” he trails off, his head slamming into the pillow as a curse falls from his lips and he spills inside the condom. A gasp tears from my lips as I follow, fingers splaying over his muscular forearms, pleasure ricocheting from my core and weakening my body.
He’s still breathing heavily as I sit up, swinging my knee over his body and hopping off the bed.
I reach for my denim skirt and pull it up, fastening the buttons.
His brow furrows as he sits up, naked as the day he was born.
I grin as I swipe my white V-neck top off the floor and tug it over my head.
“Off already?”
“I’ve got to be at work in an hour,” I say.
He playfully pouts and murmurs, “That’s a real shame.”
I shake my head, amused, and pull my boots over my ankles. “You should get dressed; Jace could be back any minute.” I gesture towards his roommate’s bed.
He doesn’t answer, and within half a minute, I’m leaving his room, stepping into the silent corridor. The stairs creak beneath me, but I manage to slip out the front door without anyone spotting me, heart pounding in time with each step.
Fresh air hits my face, and as relief seeps through my tense shoulders, I descend the porch steps, eyes flicking back and forth for anything that moves, remnants of taunting, mocking voices from last time I was spotted echoing in my mind.
The driveway is empty—no boys leaning against the house, no one jeering as I slip away.
My shoulders relax, though I keep my pace quick, because a girl lingering at Brook House before five a.m. certainly isn’t here for the scenery.
Not that I care what they think. But it’s dangerous. Word about how Rayden and I spend our time together could get back to—
“Mils!”
Shit.
I jump, nearly stumbling. Cursing under my breath, I force a smile onto my face and look left. Sam’s jogging towards me.
“Sam,” I greet softly.
“What are you doing here?” His eyes dart from the empty driveway to the looming house behind, his brow furrowing.
“Visiting,” I say, shrugging.
“Who?”
My lips twitch into a small smile. “You.”
He scoffs and crosses his arms, disbelief spilling over his face. “Really? Rayden again?”
“Maybe,” I reply, shrugging once more, though my gut twists at his words.
“Mils!”
My voice drops. “I don’t need a lecture, Sam.”
His frown deepens as he exhales, tightening his arms. “I know. I just… don’t want to see you get hurt.”
A soft, genuine smile pulls at my lips. “I’m not going to get hurt,” I say honestly.
Shaking his head, he scoffs again, exasperation in his eyes. “There’s no such thing as casual sex—”
“Sam.” I step closer, resting a hand on his shoulder. “There is.”
He frowns for a moment before his jaw tightens. “Mils. In two weeks’ time, the State could partner you off, and then you and Ray won’t ever be able to—”
“That’s what they think,” I interrupt, voice sharp.
“Emilia, you can’t seriously think you can go up against them with this?” he says, words landing like a punch to the chest.
My smile drops, spine stiffening. “The State can go fuck themselves,” I whisper, voice low, and instantly raw.
“You think any of us want this?” Sam snaps, eyes darkening. “I can’t go a day without thinking about her. She was killed right in front of me. How am I supposed to move on?”
Before I can respond, he snatches up the bag of rubbish he’d been clearing, turning and storming down the drive, away from the boys’ home.
I bite my lip, ribs aching as I breathe deep. I know he doesn’t mean to take his anger out on me. He was so madly in love with Molly, and instead of a happy, normal life with her, he’s being forced into this warped, doctored reality. My stomach twists.
“I know you miss Molly,” I call, struggling to keep up in my heeled boots. At my words, his back stiffens.
Slowly, he turns to face me. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he mutters, jaw tight.
“You’re right; I don’t.” I sigh, the words tasting bitter on my tongue. The only relationship I ever had—the on-off drama with Rayden—is nothing like the head-over-heels, obsessive, infatuated love Sam and Molly shared.
He shakes his head, turning and aggressively throwing the rubbish bag into the ditch at the end of the drive. A choked sound escapes him before he collapses onto a fallen tree, his shoulders hunched.
“I just don’t understand how they expect us to accept this,” he breathes out, voice cracking.
I sink down beside him, resting a hand on his back. His muscles are stiff, locked with tension, and I bite my lip, struggling to find words as my chest tightens with helplessness. Nothing I say will ever make this better.
This is the world now.
We have no choice but to do what they tell us. To obey or live to regret it.
It’s fucked up. But the only way out is death.
It took five months to contain the world-wide war started by a country I can hardly remember the name of. I spent that time being hauled from hospital to hospital, a new one every five or so days after the previous one was bombed. New walls, new nurses… new despair.
I shouldn’t have survived.
Not with the amount of metal and brick that showered down on me over the months. The scars across my ribs still ache when I breathe too deep, a reminder that I shouldn’t be here.
Some, Sam included, say it’s a miracle.
They’re wrong.
Surviving means having to live in this world; a screwed-up community run by people who think ultimate control must be exercised by those at the top.
We were told that the majority of the world’s population lost their lives in the war.
Once, someone told me that over ninety percent were lost, but there’s no way to know for sure.
Because no one won.
World domination was definitely not achieved.
As far as I’m aware, every country ended up like we did—destroyed beyond belief, burning, crushed, and scrambling to survive on the scraps left standing in the wake of the bombs.
I’ve not heard any updates on life outside of England, so for all I know… we’re all that’s left. Maybe this version of hell is us winning the goddamn war.
I can’t even remember who started it.
Or why.
But I didn’t care back then, and I certainly don’t give a shit now.
And I don’t think anyone else does either.
A month after it ended, I was finally able to return home, my leg weak, but healed enough to stumble around with a crutch. The city lay in ruins—streets ravaged by craters and half the buildings reduced to rubble. The library was long gone, the cinema shattered into fragments.
My house was empty.
My parents, my brother, my cockapoo, Eva. All gone.
I wandered through the wreckage in a daze, stomach knotted, hands trembling, until I stumbled into the Council House on the Old Market Square, one of the few buildings still standing.
And there he was.
Sam.
We collapsed into each other’s arms, shaking as tears streaked down our faces.
It was there, amidst our sobs, that I learnt Molly hadn’t survived the first night.
The bombs had claimed her before the two of them even reached the car park.
Sam’s guttural, broken sob soared over my own cries, and I felt his heartbreak deep in my gut—an agonising ache that had broken his happy-go-lucky spark.
The rubble took years to clear. Some houses and buildings were rebuilt, patched up and repainted, but most were left to rot in ruins.
The remaining dregs of the government gathered quickly, soon deciding that with so few of them left, it was best to split the country into four segments, each having their own government to rule over the small, dwindling population.
What each government did in their own segment was completely up to them, and an electric fence was put up to stop people escaping to a different segment.
I’ve never seen it, but rumours speak of a concrete base rigged with electric wire, reaching over fifteen feet high, before metal posts emerge out the top, stretching even higher.
Thick coils of electric wire wind around them, linking each post and forging a deadly cage.
Easily nine metres tall, it prevents anyone from getting even close to potential freedom.
Our government in the ‘North’ called themselves ‘The State’ and decided that their main priority would be to increase population and give the human race a greater chance of surviving their recent mistakes.
As such, there are three obligatory rules;
School education is for those up to the age of nineteen. After this, the government will assign you a job dependent on where they feel ‘your strengths lie.’
I always wanted to be a hairstylist. Now I work on the farm, out in the fields six days a week, digging, planting, and picking endless crops to feed the city.
Even older survivors aren’t safe. Sam’s dad was dragged to another city nine months after the war, the State insisting he was a ‘more useful asset’ elsewhere. Sam is allowed to see him once a year.
Orphaned girls and boys will stay in separate, communal houses until rule three comes into play.
So many people lost their parents. Both Brook and Grafton House were immediately fit to burst, every single one of us shoved into shared bedrooms and forced to eat in communal cafeterias.
Each year, on 1st June, they hold The Matching, whereby from the age of nineteen onwards every girl and boy will be interviewed under an assessment to find their ‘soulmate.’ Those matched will be married and assigned a house on the east side of the city, legally bound to stay together for at least three years.
One child must be born during this time.
Fuck. Off.
If they don’t find a suitable match, it’s Grafton House for another year. Twenty-four years old is the limit; after this, a partner will be assigned no matter what, compatibility be damned.
This year, we’re both twenty-one.
The three rules are bound by law.
I’ve heard that those who break them are tortured, shot, or dragged from their beds in the dead of night, kicking and screaming.
“Maybe they’ll pair us together?” I say softly, though as the words spill out, I already know how unlikely that is.
Sam’s lips twitch into a soft, sad smile, and he shakes his head. “Now that’s wishful thinking.”
I shrug. “It could happen.”
“Maybe you’ll get Rayden.”
“I doubt it,” I say.
Rayden’s a good friend, and once upon a time, he was my everything. But that was another life. We’ve both changed so much, and the State—although, they don’t really know what they are doing—will definitely not match us.
“You’ll be okay, Mils,” Sam says. “No matter what.”
“So will you,” I reply, but my voice shakes.
His hand finds mine, his fingers cold, and he squeezes tighter than ever, as though holding on to me, his friend from before the world went to shit, might stop everything from changing.
“I’ll never forget Molly,” he whispers.
“I know.” I rest my head on his shoulder, the corduroy fabric of his jacket digging into my cheek. “And they can never take that from you.”
He swallows hard.
“She’d want you to be happy,” I say softly, lifting my head to meet his gaze.
He looks at me, his eyes dark and glassy. He drags his bottom lip through his teeth before looking back at Brook House.
“We should run away,” he says.
“We should,” I whisper, a faint smile pulling across my face.
I can almost see it: bags on our backs, tearing through the countryside, laughing as we run—completely free.
Just the two of us against the world, the way it’s been since we were ten, starting our first day at a new school at the same time.
The Enforcers would catch us before we reached the outskirts of the city and throw us in The Cell or send us to Killmoor or bury our bodies.
But still… a girl can dream.
My head falls back to his shoulder.
“Emilia?” His voice is barely audible.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think there’s anything else out there? Beyond the wall?”
I keep still, eyes tracing over the gravel road that winds towards the centre of the city.
Weeds push through the broken tarmac, the gravel on top a makeshift repair carried out by people like us; the ones given the job of repairing the Enforcers’ roadways.
Roads that carry the State Enforcers north to other cities, or south to the wall, winding through the land wherever they want to fucking go.
And all the while, we’re trapped here, in Nottingham.
“Yeah,” I say at last, filled with wishful thinking. “Yeah, I do.” I look up at the sky, cloudy and grey, a complete mirror of the day the war broke out. “But they’re not coming to save us.”