Chapter 2

EVELYN'S POV

“Ethan!” I struck the glass with my fist. “You don't get to do this to me! I gave you everything!”

He looked at me one last time. “You should have kept something for yourself, then.”

The words settled between us then he walked away.

Vanessa followed him, still wearing my sweater.

I watched them disappear down the hallway, and something inside me finally broke.

Not because I was cold or because I was hungry.

But because the man I had spent three years loving had just taught me the ugliest lesson of my life.

Love did not make people loyal.

Sacrifice did not make people grateful.

And being a good woman did not guarantee that anyone would be good to you in return.

I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the frozen ground. My fingers had become stiff, and every breath burned in my chest. The wind carried the distant sounds of screaming through the abandoned parking lot.

Somewhere beyond the barricades, an infected person slammed into a vehicle. The alarm began blaring, its shrill sound cutting through the night.

I tried to stand, but my legs refused to cooperate.

My eyes drifted toward the Christmas decorations hanging inside the shelter. Someone had placed a small artificial tree beside the fireplace, and a string of colored lights blinked above the entrance.

I had bought those lights.

I had insisted that we needed something cheerful to remind us that the world had not always been cruel.

Now I was going to die outside the very place I had helped protect.

A shadow moved through the snow.

At first, I thought it was another infected person, but the figure moved too steadily. A tall man approached the shelter, dressed in a black winter coat with a rifle strapped across his back.

He stopped a few feet away and crouched beside me.

“Evelyn Hart?”

I tried to lift my head.

His face was unfamiliar, but there was something commanding about him, something that made even my failing mind recognize that he was not an ordinary survivor.

He pulled off one glove and pressed two fingers against my neck.

“Stay awake,” he ordered. “Can you hear me?”

My lips trembled. “Who... are you?”

“Damien Cross.”

The name stirred a memory.

Damien Cross, the man who controlled the strongest fortress in the region. The man people accused of executing raiders without trial. The man whose compound had survived attacks that destroyed entire settlements.

I had heard stories about him, but I had never imagined meeting him.

Especially not like this.

He shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. The warmth was immediate, but my body was too far gone to respond properly.

“Why are you here?” I whispered.

His gaze shifted toward the locked shelter door.

For a moment, his expression became frighteningly cold.

“Your husband refused to let you inside?”

I managed a weak nod.

Damien looked back at me.

“Then we're leaving.”

He slipped one arm beneath my knees and another behind my back, lifting me as if I weighed nothing. I tried to tell him that I couldn't walk, that I had nowhere to go, that it was too late to save me.

But the words never came.

My vision blurred as he carried me away from the shelter. The Christmas lights disappeared behind the falling snow, and the sounds of the infected grew louder.

“Why are you helping me?” I managed to ask.

Damien looked down at me.

“Because I've been looking for you.”

I wanted to ask what he meant, but my eyes were closing.

His voice reached me one last time.

“Evelyn, listen carefully. Whatever happens next, do not trust your husband again.”

A sharp pain sliced my ribs and then the world went black.