Chapter 1

Nathan Cole grabbed my hand with the last of his strength, and his eyes locked onto mine. "Stay alive," he whispered. "Take our hope and find Eden."

The world roared around me. I couldn't hear anything, couldn't see anything. All I had left was the body in my arms, growing colder by the second.

I held him tight, and with him, the backpack strapped to his back, the one carrying the beacon.

But the next morning, I stumbled out of the shelter, and the cold wind hit my face. It cut through the fog in my head just enough for me to think.

The sky looked the same as it always did, a sickly grayish-brown haze with a few dying stars scattered along the horizon.

This was the morning before we left.

The world had ended, and I was trapped in the last day before we died.

*****

Four in the morning, and the wasteland was cold as iron.

Wind tore through our shelter, a half-crushed shipping container propped against a slab of concrete, and it screamed like something dying.

I lay curled in my sleeping bag, every breath leaving a cloud of white vapor in front of my face. The air tasted like rust and dust, that same bitter, metallic flavor that belonged to this godforsaken world and nowhere else.

I opened my eyes and stared up at a hole the years had eaten through the container's roof. A few faint stars flickered behind the haze, dim and stubborn in a way that felt like a bad omen.

Nathan was already up. He moved quietly, barely making a sound, but I could feel the shift in the air as he passed.

He was laying out our last supplies on a strip of tarp, one item at a time. Two cans of clean water. Four energy bars. A small packet of antibiotics and half a tube of burn cream.

That was everything we had. We'd bled for every piece of it in the ruins along the edge of the radiation zone.

I sat up, and the sleeping bag scraped against the ground. Nathan glanced back at me and gave me that familiar half-smile, his teeth white and almost too bright in the dark.

He said, "You're up? Go back to sleep. It's still a long way till dawn."

His voice was steady, the way it always was. It had a way of smoothing out the raw edges this world had ground into my nerves.

But I couldn't sleep. My stomach felt like a block of ice had settled inside it, tight and cramping. Today was our last shot. We had to find that beacon.

I didn't answer. I just walked over, knelt beside him, and started checking our weapons. One beat-up Pioneer Model 7 rifle with a stock I'd wrapped and rewrapped in tape so many times it had its own rough, familiar texture.

And a combat knife Nathan had sharpened for me himself, the blade catching the faint light with a cold gleam.

He packed everything up and then pulled a small metal case from inside his jacket. He opened it and took out an auto-injector.

The liquid inside was clear, shifting slightly in the dim glow. It was Adrenaline. Our one lifeline, the kind that could squeeze every last drop of fight out of a dying body.

He pressed the injector into my hand. His fingers were warm and dry, and they closed around mine. He said, "You take it."

My heart clenched, and I tried to push it back. I said, "You need it more than I do."

He cut me off. "Don't argue." He didn't wait for an answer. He just slid the injector into the slot on my tactical vest, and it clicked into place.

He said, "Your reflexes are faster than mine. You've got a better chance of breaking through with the beacon. It's the smart play."

He always had a reason. He was always calm, always rational, and always right. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper.

He gripped my shoulders and turned me to face him. "Vera, don't be scared," he said softly.

He leaned closer, and his warm breath brushed against my forehead. "Once we reach Eden, everything will be okay. The soil there is clean, the air is fresh, and the water is pure.

"I'll clear a patch of land next to our house and fill it with flowers for you."

"I can't even remember what flowers smell like anymore," I whispered.

"You will." He looked into my eyes. Those eyes, always so calm and steady, now burned with something I had never seen before. It was hope. It was so real, so fierce, it almost scorched me.

I believed him. Or maybe I chose to believe him. On this barren wasteland where every breath felt like a luxury, believing him was the only thing keeping me alive.

I held on to the idea that this was the end of our suffering and the beginning of something better.