Life in a FEDRA-run quarantine zone wasn’t much of a life at all. The old apartment buildings were crammed and hadn’t seen maintenance in decades. Walls crumbling, pipes shaking whenever water ran, electricity scarce if you were lucky enough to have it at all. Survival hinged on ration cards. Need food? Ration cards. Sick or injured? Ration cards. If you had nothing to trade, you had nothing.

For a man like Joel, it was easy to fall in with the wrong crowd. What did he have to lose? Tommy had left years ago, Sarah had died in his arms, and everything good in the world had burned away with her. So when Tess came along, he followed. Smuggling old-world luxuries, weapons, whatever people were desperate enough to pay for.

He and Tess had an understanding. When someone tried to cheat her, Joel was the one who beat the bastard bloody. And when the nights were too cold, she was a warm body for an hour. It wasn’t love. He wasn’t sure he could love anymore. Love belonged to a different man, a different life. One that had ended in a pool of blood on the pavement twenty years ago. What he had now was survival.

Then he saw her. The sweetest damn thing left in the QZ. Maybe the world.

It was a cold Sunday morning when he spotted her at the market, bartering over a handful of bruised peaches, her voice soft, too soft for a place like this. Hair like silk, shifting with the lazy breeze, a sundress faded but clean, a stubborn reminder of beauty in a world long past saving. She smelled like flowers—real flowers, not the rotting stench of the city. He could swear he saw the sun catch in her eyes, a warmth he hadn’t felt in decades.

Joel stood there, hands rough, blood under his nails, body stiff from years of violence. Filthy, hardened, unworthy. She was looking at fruit like it was treasure. He was looking at her like she was salvation.

The man he was supposed to meet? The trade? Forgotten.

For the first time in years, Joel felt something other than hunger, other than rage. And he hated it.