Chapter 3

Dangerous out here?

How laughable. He knew full well the radiation clouds were gathering. He knew nightfall brought mutant hordes. He knew a lone survivor left in the wasteland had less than a ten percent survival rate. Yet he confiscated my only weapon as casually as taking a toy from an unruly child.

He slid the dagger into his own boot, stood up, and looked down at me pinned against the metal.

"Hold her still," he commanded.

Zip-ties bit savagely into my wrists, tearing skin and drawing blood.

With my face mashed against the truck, all I could see was rusted metal and dirt.

"Luna, let go," Garrett’s voice drifted down, low and threatening. "Don't make me say it twice."

My right hand was clamped over my chest pocket, fingers curled tight around the inner lining, knuckles bone-white.

The cold glass vial pressed against my palm. I had paid 1,111 days of my life for this, endured sleepless horrors, searing radiation flare-ups, and the humiliation of begging in black markets.

A flicker of hesitation crossed Garrett's eyes. But just then, Chloe burst into another fit of violent coughing. A trickle of dark blood spilled from the corner of her lips.

She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face.

"Garrett... don't... don't hurt Luna... I can bear it..."

Her voice was faint, as if every syllable cost her last breath, yet loud enough for everyone to hear. "To die this close to Eden... is enough for me... Let Luna go inside... She’s been with you for so long... She deserves a good life..."

"Look at her!" Garrett's eyes went bloodshot—whether from fury, heartache, or putting on a show for the others, I didn't care.

He bent down, practically hissing into my ear, his voice carrying clearly across the yard: "She's coughing up blood! The necrosis is spreading! She's dying! How long are you going to hoard that vial?! Your life matters, but hers doesn't?!"

He grabbed my wrist.

My wrists were slender; he could wrap his fingers around them with ease.

Once, he used to hold my wrist gently, whispering, "'It's so delicate, I'm scared I'll break it. I have to protect you.'"

Now, he used full force.

Blinding pain shot through my arm. I clamped my jaw shut, refusing to cry out.

He used joint-locking techniques from combat training, prying my fingers back one by one.

I heard my own finger joints pop under the strain, groaning like brittle twigs.

"Let go, Luna! Let go!"

"Garrett... you will regret this..." I hissed through gritted teeth.

He paused for a microsecond, a fleeting tremor in his gaze, but it was quickly swallowed by cold cruelty.

"You're the one who should regret this! If you had handed it over earlier, we wouldn't have had to do this!"

He snapped my last finger back and ripped the vial from my grasp.

Under the collective gaze of the team, he dropped to one knee before Chloe.

It was the exact pose he had used when he proposed to me.

With infinite tenderness, he positioned the needle against the blackened, bulging veins of her neck. He handled her like priceless porcelain—a brutal contrast to the way he had just broken my fingers.

"Hang in there, Chloe. It'll be over in a second," his voice was so soft it could melt stone.

The needle sank into her skin.

Chloe let out a tiny wince, her brow knitting.

"Did that hurt?" Garrett asked immediately, his thumb gently smoothing over the injection site in an instinctive act of comfort.