Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zac
What?” Emilia exclaims, eyes wide with confusion.
“I’m from London,” I tell her.
“You are? Then how… How did you...?” she trails off, clearly trying to piece together how I ended up stuck in the shitty North.
I take a deep breath, staring up at the sky. “My mum was sick. Gia and I went north to see a specialist doctor in Manchester. That was the day the bombs hit.” I pause. “We were switching trains but never made it home. Obviously.”
“And… after that night?”
My jaw tightens. I wring my hands together, not daring to tear my eyes from the stars.
“To start with, it was just pure chaos. We didn’t even consider trying to leave Nottingham.
But after three weeks, we left, determined to somehow get back to London.
Find a car that still worked, or hitchhike, or…
walk.” I swallow the instant lump in my throat.
“We made it to Clifton on foot before a bomb struck not eight hundred yards from us. A damn tree saved me, but Gia was hit by shrapnel.”
“Oh, Zac.” Emilia’s voice is quiet, softer than usual.
“The army found us fast and carted Gia off to hospital in their already overflowing ambulance truck; they told me to head to the hospital to find her, but there were eight or nine makeshift hospitals by that point, and during my search for her, they kept being moved as a result of the bombings,” I tell her.
“Took me two weeks to find her, and when I did, she was in no state to go anywhere,” I pause, my brow furrowing.
“So we stayed. Said we’d head back once it was safe to do so.
But then the war ended, and there were hardly any vehicles left, and Gia couldn’t have walked all that way to London.
I promised her that as soon as everything settled down, we’d be able to head home. ”
Emilia shifts beside me. “They didn’t offer to let you… go back? Before they built the wall?”
“No.” My eyes fall, meeting hers. “There were nine of us from London, and they told us at the last possible moment that they couldn’t spare the resources to transport us home. Utter bullshit.”
“Zac... I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t be,” I cut her off, shaking my head. “It’s done.”
“I wish people would stop saying that,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. “Just shoving everything we went through under the carpet. It’s okay to not be okay.”
She’s right.
Jordan never talks about his fiancée. About how they were fleeing Nottingham during the war and got caught in an airstrike.
He talked about it once—about how they lay, bloody and broken, next to one another.
How she murmured his name over and over until the only thing that came out were gurgles.
Until she fell silent. Since then, he hasn’t said a single word about her. Not one.
Kieran and Anna pretend they’re fine, too.
Every morning, they trade snarky comments like nothing’s missing, but they still don’t know what happened to their parents after the State enforced their laws.
They vanished without a trace the day after their dad was employed as an Enforcer.
Kieran keeps their picture folded in his jeans, faded and torn.
And Claudia.
Fuck.
Claudia’s whole family was gunned down in front of her just because her father opposed these arranged marriages. She doesn’t cry about it, doesn’t talk. Just keeps moving, like if she stops, it might catch up with her.
I’m no different. I’m not okay—not deep down.
The pain’s still there, rotting inside me.
From the very minute I’d thrown my fists at the scraps of the army who’d told us we couldn’t get back to London before the wall went up, panic had consumed me over not knowing—never being able to know—what happened to my mum or my baby sister back in London.
Not knowing what happened to Gia after she disappeared.
It’s all twisted into something sharp and dark, something that doesn’t feel entirely human anymore.
But life doesn’t care; it just keeps fucking going.
“I’m okay.”
Emilia scoffs, shaking her head, arms tightening around her knees. “I don’t believe you.”
I tear my gaze away, jaw clenching. Her eyes are locked on me, searching for weakness.
“I am.”
“Your sister could still be out there,” she says, voice missing any kind of conviction. “In the countryside, maybe?”
“I doubt it.” I shake my head. “The Enforcers would’ve found her by now.”
“But—”
“They comb the North, Emilia,” I interrupt, harsher than I mean to.
“Truckloads of them, back and forth through the wrecked countryside, armed to the fucking teeth. I see them looking for deserters almost every day.” I’ve seen them capturing runaways.
Seen the way they hunt them down, wrestle them to the ground, gun them down…
all of it—it’s one of the only reasons I’m still here in the city.
The silence that follows is heavy. She drops her chin to her knees, hair falling forward, hiding most of her face.
“She’s long dead,” I mutter.
“Zac…” Her voice is quiet, full of something I don’t want—pity, or maybe sympathy. I push to my feet, needing distance.
“Goodnight, Emilia,” I say. But I don’t move right away; instead, I glance down at her. At the stiff shoulders still visible beneath her loose hoodie.
She looks up, blue eyes catching against the faint glow of the moon and stars, lighter and sharper than I’ve ever seen. They hit me square in the chest—too open, too damn captivating—and for a second, I forget how to breathe.
“Night,” she murmurs, soft and almost angelic.
For a heartbeat, I want to sit back down and let the night swallow us, staring up at the stars like none of this shit matters.
But that… That would be a mistake.
I force myself to move, heading for the sofa that’s become my bed since this whole mess began, and drop onto it, trying not to think about the girl still sitting beneath the stars.
I spend most of the following evening in the basement with Kieran, practicing shooting until my shoulder aches, sparring until my knuckles throb. Every hit, every lift, every spent bullet is another second not spent thinking about her.
At ten, I drag myself upstairs, sweaty and wired, and drop down beside Claudia to go through the new State documents Anna’s swiped.
My eyes move over the words, but none of it sticks.
The letters blur, turning into the shape of her mouth when she’s angry, the flash of her eyes when she’s standing too damn close.
I’m just restless.
There’s leftover tension from our conversation about Gia. From her being someone else who knows about my lost sister. That’s all it is.
I’m lying.
It’s her.
The way her blonde hair spilled down her back, catching the starlight.
The way she hugged her knees, pushing her chest up without meaning to.
The way my brain short-circuits every time she does pretty much anything.
Her smart mouth always has a fucking answer, fierce with fire that makes me want to argue just to watch her burn.
And that faint freckle just above her lip—one I shouldn’t notice, but do, every fucking time.
The fact that she’s taller than most girls. Her jaw, her curves, her skin.
Those damn fucking boots.
Claudia watches me from across the table, and when I look up, she’s smirking, eyes twinkling like she’s figured me out. I shove the papers aside and stand, chair scraping loudly against the floor.
“Fuck this.”
She just nods, the same smug smile tugging at her mouth.
Storming up the stairs, I slam into my room, grabbing a clean pair of clothes and heading for the bathroom.
Anna steps out as I pass, in skimpy shorts and a tiny top, but I don’t slow.
For one of the first times, I push past her, shaking my head.
The door clicks shut between us.
I twist the shower on full blast, steam filling the room before I even step underneath. The water hits hard, stinging and scalding as I try to burn the heat from my chest. I press my palms to the tiles, head bowed, teeth clenched.
Emilia.
Fucking Emilia.
I can’t stop thinking about her. The way she tilts her head like she knows exactly what she does to me. The thought makes my gut twist—part hunger, part fury—until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
I curl my hands into fists. In my head, I see her…
standing in front of me wearing that fiery smirk that makes my blood boil.
I imagine pressing my fingers into the skin at her hips, holding her in place, testing her fire.
Seeing how she’d react; if she’d wrench away from me, or if she’d break, and stay in my grip... even for just a second.
Water pounds against me, hot and relentless, but it doesn’t wash the pathetic thoughts away.
I hate that she’s under my skin. I hate that her bratty attitude, the way her hands rest on her hips or cross over her tits, makes my pulse spike and my jaw ache.
I slam my fist against the wall, water splashing in all directions.
I should have Anna in here with me. I should be using her as stress relief, the same way I have for the past two and a half years. Not ignoring the brunette’s offer because a blonde who I have no interest in blurring the lines with won’t leave me alone.
This won’t do.
I need to focus. Need to concentrate on the bigger picture.
And I’m not about to drag Emilia down with me.
So, I force it down. Bury it deep inside along with the grief and anger that gnaws at my humanity each day. Ignoring my solid cock practically throbbing and begging for release, I turn the temperature down, freezing icicles blasting over my body.
She’s nothing.
Just a distraction, a blip, a momentary lapse, whilst everything I’m fighting for—everything that actually matters—is still out there, waiting.