Chapter 1 (Anna’s POV)

  I hated surprises.

  Especially the kind that tore me off the path to a decent payday and left me standing alone in a half-collapsed corporate plaza. One minute I was eyeing this strange guy—some clueless newbie who had found a pocketful of useless money—thinking maybe, just maybe, if I got him back to wherever he claimed to be from, I would earn enough resources to eat for a few days. Maybe some ammo, a spare canteen. The next minute, he was glowing like he had been lit from the inside, fracturing into shards of light right before my eyes.

  It didn’t help that we were in the middle of an open courtyard where roamers or worse could show up any second.

  I stood there, heartbeat hammering a furious tempo in my ears, the stench of stale decay still clinging to the air. My bat hung limply from my fingertips, but I gripped the handle so tight it made my knuckles ache. I couldn’t even recall letting it drop from my shoulder. My brain remained stuck replaying that last moment—him jamming a key into an old, busted door, then flickering away like a poorly tuned hologram. In a realm where everything else tried to murder or devour me, this was a new one.

  “How the hell…?” I finally muttered, my voice echoing in the quiet.

  My question ricocheted uselessly off dented metal pillars and shattered glass. No answer came, of course. He was gone. One second there, the next second swirling out of existence. That door still looked like any other battered piece of steel to me—rusty, warped from who-knows-what. But I knew something had happened, because I tried to grab him and my hand slid right through. Like he was made of smoke.

  I huffed out a ragged breath, scanning the perimeter for threats. The morning sun cut long shadows over the scattered debris, lending everything a deceptive calm. Not five minutes earlier, we had been sprinting through the street, weaving past a feral so it wouldn’t tear our throats out. My new “partner” had actually stepped up, smashed a roamer’s skull, even dug out a pearl like a big boy. I was almost impressed. I even started thinking: Good. He’s not as hopeless as I thought. Maybe I can leverage this…

  Now? He was just… gone. My easy ticket to a reward, a few meager supplies—poof. Vanished.

  Rage knifed through my chest, mingling with bafflement. I slammed my bat into the ground with a muffled clang, gritting my teeth so hard I half expected them to crack. “You fucking idiot,” I whispered, like it might somehow bring him back. “How am I supposed to get a cut of your precious beans or ammo—or anything—if you just vanish into thin air?”

  The truth was, I felt more stunned than I cared to admit. I had seen a lot—people devoured alive, roamers with half a skull still moving, entire factions burned out by the Empire’s sadistic hunts. But a man disintegrating in front of me like he never belonged to this world? That was a new brand of crazy.

  My eyes drifted down to where he had stood. There wasn’t a single scuff on the concrete to suggest he ever existed, except maybe a damp footprint of gore we tracked across the plaza. My chest twisted painfully. Did it just kill him in some cosmic meltdown?

  “Damn it,” I muttered. I couldn’t afford to stand there. I glanced around again, forcing my mind back to the basics of survival: keep moving, keep quiet, stay alive.

  Yet my muscles refused to budge right away. I remained rooted to the spot, my mind still grappling with what I had just seen. That final look on his face—confusion, fear, and something like regret. He almost seemed sorry to leave me. Which was insane, given how fixated he had been on returning “home.” Wherever that was. And yeah, I was pissed. I had pinned some hopes on him—he was simply too unknowledgeable to be anything other than some spoiled brat, or so I believed, and apparently that meant big returns if I’d managed to trade or hustle him back to his group. Enough to keep me going for weeks. Not to mention, a coddled city boy might have been easy to manipulate in a pinch. Win-win.

  Instead, I watched him fade out of existence. No last-minute handshake, no “here’s your cut.” Nothing. Just a swirl of lights that left me with a few wasted minutes and a gnawing sense of confusion.

  A rancid breeze cut through the plaza, stirring up dust motes and flicking them across my face. Get it together, Anna. I raised my bat, scanning the corners of that broken courtyard. The city was quiet for the moment, but that could shift in a heartbeat. The roamers that almost cornered us earlier might shuffle back. The Empire’s goons could roll in for a sweep. Or the Vagabonds could pass by, desperate for the next kill. This was no place to stand gawking at empty air.

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  A jagged chunk of reflection glittered in the remains of a shattered window, catching my eye. It briefly showed me my reflection: clothes torn, hair filthy, eyes burning with an anger I couldn’t quite quell. I looked as haggard as I felt. My lips curled in a humorless sneer. “He took the easy way out, didn’t he?” I whispered to myself. “Lucky bastard.”

  I remembered how terrified he was when we first met—pale, sweaty, flinching at every shadow. But in the end, he faced that roamer, didn’t scream, even rummaged for pearls. A pang of respect flickered unbidden. Then resentment washed it away. He was gonna be my golden ticket. We’d talked—well, I had talked—about how if he really came from a place where money still mattered, maybe he’d pay me with supplies or weapons. Or hell, some magic exit from this damn city. We hadn’t hammered out the details, but I had banked on it.

  Now I was left with nothing but rotting streets and a half-burnt building. Sighing, I pressed a palm against my forehead, chasing away the headache blossoming behind my eyes. “Stupid,” I scolded myself. “Relying on some clueless city kid for a ticket out. As if.”

  The city remained quiet, so I took a moment to pace the plaza, pushing aside debris with my toe, scanning the area in case some trace of him might have remained. Part of me wondered if a piece of gear or an item might have dropped when he… well, disintegrated. I saw nothing but broken glass and blackened lumps of melted plastic, presumably from a fire ages ago. Not so much as a single bullet or scrap of cloth worth scavenging.

  A dull ache gnawed at my chest, an emotion I couldn’t quite name. Betrayal? Not exactly. I supposed I never fully trusted him. Disappointment, maybe. Or just the emptiness of losing what might have been the first sliver of advantage I’d had in a long, long time.

  My shoulders slumped. “Screw it,” I muttered, my voice echoing in the emptiness. I hoisted my bat again, the thick wooden handle reassuring me with its solidity. No illusions here, at least. This world was what it was—filthy, broken, merciless. Time to move on.

  Trudging back toward the main thoroughfare, I forced myself to plan my next steps. The eastern quarter might still have some unraided supply depots—dangerous as hell, but maybe I could scrounge some food. There was a half-collapsed block that used to house a grocery distribution center. The roof had caved in, so the bigger factions mostly ignored it. There might be something left that wasn’t thoroughly rotted. I would keep to the side streets, avoid the Empire’s patrols, watch for roamers…

  But a voice in my head kept whispering, He got out. He left you here.

  Grinding my teeth, I slammed the bat against a chunk of concrete, sending dust flying. “Stop it,” I hissed. “Stop whining.”

  He was never my friend. This was never personal. It had been a business arrangement that never got off the ground. That was all. I had survived before him, I would survive now. The city could chew me up, but I’d proven it couldn’t swallow me whole.

  Still, the image of him flickering away lingered as I passed the battered sign that once read MANNING & CO. in gleaming letters. They dangled precariously from bent nails, half crumpled by God-knew-what. In a cruel flash of memory, I recalled how he was so surprised that money meant nothing here, how he acted like a wad of green bills was a ticket to salvation. If only it were so easy in this ruin. If only anything were easy.

  My gut twisted at the thought of the money he waved around, even if it was worthless here. Now that he was gone—wherever “gone” was—he probably left with it. Another wave of frustration surged. Why couldn’t he at least have dropped that wad for me? Or a few bills? Hell, I could’ve used the paper as tinder for a fire.

  I laughed, a harsh, humorless sound that bounced off the deserted storefronts. “Guess you got the last laugh, city boy,” I mumbled. “Hope your fancy paper serves you well.”

  The breeze shifted, carrying the faint, all-too-familiar stench of decay from a nearby alley. My senses snapped to attention. Time to be quiet. Time to vanish before any roamers drifted this way. My finger bones whitened around the bat’s handle, and I squared my shoulders, letting the survival instincts drive me forward like they always had.

  Within moments, I was prowling back through the city, every step measured, purposeful. The empty corporate plaza lay behind me now, and so did the fleeting memory of him. Except… not quite. I couldn’t shake that scene: him dissolving, fractals of light dancing around his face, the conflict in his eyes. He’d looked almost apologetic.

  I scoffed under my breath, ignoring the pang in my chest. Feelings were a liability here. Thinking about him, or “what ifs,” wouldn’t fill my stomach or guard my back. My father used to say, Sentiment’s for the dead. In some ways, maybe that was true.

  Let the city bury this memory along with everything else.

  Still, as the gritty wind stung my eyes, I couldn’t help one final glance over my shoulder—back toward that battered building. It stood silent, walls streaked with rust and grime, no sign of the shimmering phenomenon that stole him away. That door was probably just a locked hunk of metal again, if it was even locked at all.

  My jaw tightened. If there was one rule here, it was that I survived by not dwelling on impossibilities. He got out—somehow. Good for him. And me? I had a job to do: living.

  So I marched onward, boots crunching broken glass, ignoring the flickers of self-doubt. The city felt emptier than ever, as though mocking the fact I was alone again. Fine. Loneliness I could handle.

  What was one more betrayal in a place that had already tried to kill me a thousand times?

  The sun kept rising, painting the broken skyline in vivid oranges and pinks. Another day in this apocalypse, another chance to fight or to die. I gritted my teeth, swinging my bat onto my shoulder with renewed purpose. Screw anything that stood in my way. If that meant smashing roamers, raiders, or the illusions of a better life, I would do it. Because as much as I hated surprises, I hated giving up more.

  That was the only truth I knew.

  I kept going.