Chapter 24 - Zane

“ZANE!”

Maisie’s scream is not the type of noise a person should make.

It’s a wet, torn wail, the kind of sound that emanates from a throat as it’s being ripped out. I watch her body fall to the floor and I am paralyzed, silent, saying nothing, doing nothing, utterly unable to move, my world squeezing smaller and smaller to the size of a pin. A sound like an engine revving roars through my ears, louder and louder. I try to twitch my fingers, but they won’t move.

The life vanishes from her eyes and—

I wake with a start, my heart pounding like a drum in my chest. Sweat coats my skin despite the cool morning air through the window of my room in the pack center, where I’ve stayed for the past week.

The nightmare still clings to me, wrapping its icy tendrils around my throat and dragging me under, over and over. It’s a struggle just to even my breathing out. Whenever I blink, I can still see her—Maisie, whose name even now feels impossible to say out loud—lying there, blood soaking her clothes, her lifeless eyes staring at me, accusing me, empty.

All I’ve done for a week is dream of her death.

I can’t shake the image.

I sit up in bed, swallowing hard, trying to push down the panic clawing at my gut. The room is still dark, the first streaks of dawn just barely filtering through the window. The rain has finally stopped after what feels like days of endless downpours, leaving the air damp and heavy, but there’s a stillness now, like the town is holding its breath.

The calm before the storm.

I’ve been on edge since the raid, since Maisie and I barely made it back alive, but the worst part hasn’t been the impending attack or even the thought of war. She’s been avoiding me since we returned to Rosecreek. I haven’t been permitted to visit even once, and I can understand why. All the pain she’s currently in, all her heartache, it’s my fault. I wouldn’t want to see me either.

My hands tremble as I scrub them over my face. I’ve been leaving letters, but it’s not enough. Nothing can release from inside me all that I want to say, all that I need to express. She’s probably burning the letters anyway.

I throw on my clothes, ignoring the stiffness in my muscles from days of tension and restless sleep, and head out into the streets of Rosecreek.

It’s a ghost town. Nothing moves anywhere, nothing but the wind whistling softly through the streets. Most of the civilians are gone, save for a few brave volunteers who stayed to hold down the fort. The streets are empty save those of us prepared to defend this place with our lives. I hear footsteps a few streets down, distant and muffled, from the few patrols making their rounds, echoing in the emptiness.

It’s unsettling to see Rosecreek so still, the buildings dark and abandoned. This place… it's become home, in a way no other place has ever been for me. I don’t know when I came to love it the way I do. I never asked to find a place like this. It just happened.

Maisie’s been here for years. I’ve never asked her how she came to be in Rosecreek. She’s always smelled like the pack. Did she long for this place before she found herself here? Is it still the only place she can imagine being for the rest of her life?

I wish I could ask her. I wish I could see her. I miss the smell of her, the feel of her, even when we’re only sharing a room. I miss the gentle music of her shy laugh.

I’m not a man who knows how to love easily, but I love her, I think, and the thought hits me like a lightning bolt. I love her with a terrifying force; I love her with blind, consuming devotion. I’d stay on an island with her forever and never get bored. I’d take her to a bunker far from this place if I could. I think I’ll always want her.

And she doesn’t know. She has no idea.

As the sun starts to dip below the horizon, casting long shadows over the town, I head toward the clinic, my heart pounding with a mix of dread and determination.

I need to see her. I need to tell her the truth, even if she doesn’t want to hear it, even if she pushes me away.

There’s no other way. The more I allow for the distance between us to grow, the more solid and unbridgeable that distance will become. I know it’s true.

I love you. I prepare my mouth to say it. I love you.

When I reach the clinic, I pause for a moment, my breath fogging in the cooling air. Everyone’s too busy to guard this place any longer. They’ve assumed I’d given up.

I won’t, I swear to myself. Never again. And I push the door open.

Maisie’s sitting behind her desk, her head bowed over a stack of papers. She looks exhausted, like the spark has been snuffed within her. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her face is pale, her curly hair unkempt. Everyone who stayed has been instructed to wear bulletproof vests at all times, and hers is dutifully strapped on, secured above one of those soft-collared shirts she used to wear when working at the clinic before all of this. Before I ruined everything—before I ruined her. She has never looked so unhappy, not even the first time I broke her heart.

But she’s still beautiful. She’s still the woman I fell in love with. The woman I’ve been in love with for a long time.

Her eyes flicker up when she hears me come in. Our gazes meet.

She seems surprised, but after a comprehending moment, she is not surprised at all anymore.

“Zane,” she says, her voice flat. “What do you want?”

I swallow hard and steel myself. I expected this. I knew she wouldn’t just forgive me, not after everything I’ve done. But hearing the distance in her voice feels like a punch to the gut.

“I… I needed to see you,” I manage, my voice rough. “I needed to talk to you, Maisie.”

She lets out a soft, bitter laugh, shaking her head. She pushes back from the desk, struggling to her feet. She looks sick.

“Talk? Now you want to talk?” she demands. “After everything? Now’s the time you want to have a conversation?”

Her words sting, but I deserve it. Whatever she wants to do, I deserve it.

“I know I’ve been an ass. I know I’ve hurt you, but I was trying to protect you. I thought—”

She cuts me off, her eyes flashing with a new sharpness. “You don’t get to play the hero here. Not now. Zane, I don’t want to fight with you. I refuse to fight with you. I can’t afford to be distracted right now. Not if I’m going to make it through this.”

I step closer, my voice quiet but desperate. “I know. I know. I promise I’ll go, I’ll go if you want me to, I just need to—I just need to say—”

Her eyebrow rises. She waits for me to speak.

My throat closes. “I love—”

She flinches at my words, her jaw tightening as she looks away.

“Stop,” she whispers in a voice so wounded she hardly sounds like herself. “ Stop it. It’s not real.”

“It is real,” I say, moving toward her. “It’s real, and I know I’ve been a coward, but I’m here now. I’m not running anymore. I’m not going, not ever again, and you can’t get rid of me, not even if you want to, because I’m staying this time, and—”

Maisie’s eyes fill with tears. I see her lip tremble, and her face collapses. She turns away from me so I can’t see her cry.

“I’ve made my peace with it, Zane,” she chokes out. “I knew it wasn’t real. I knew I’d never be enough for you.”

Her words slice through me, and I move closer, desperate to make her understand. I step around her desk and we stand face to face for the first time since our fight in the rainstorm. All the tired lines on her face, all the desperate exhaustion—I see every inch of her terrifying fight, her brilliant bravery.

“That’s not true,” I say. “You are enough; you’ve always been enough. You’re everything. Please, just—”

“Zane, back off—”

I put my hands up placatingly, but Maisie isn’t moving away from me.

I start to speak, not even certain what’s going to come out of my mouth. She speaks at the same time, trembling lips parting around the shape of my name, and as tears spill down her cheeks, something seems to overtake her, and she lurches forward at the same time as I do.

Possessed by something I’ve never known, I pull her into my arms and hold her so tight I’m sure it hurts, and I crash my lips against hers. The warmth of her, the taste of her, is like coming home after years spent away. She kisses me like she needs it to breathe, hands gripping my shirt helplessly, body pressed against my chest, tremors wracking her frame.

There is a cacophonous noise. Outside, an explosion so forceful and loud that it rattles the windows rings out.

We break apart. Maisie’s wet lips are still all I can see. I hold her body close to mine as if I can protect her from this, as if I can wrap her in an impenetrable cocoon.

But if I’m going to protect her, I have to go. I have to be out there with the others.

The attack has begun.

The ground shakes beneath us, the walls rattling. I spot a narrow plume of smoke rising from the west side of town, swelling over the top of the buildings on the opposite side of the street.

Maisie’s fingers are still locked into my shirt. Pulling away is the most difficult ordeal I’ve faced in my living memory.

“I have to go,” I murmur close to her lips, praying she’ll understand, praying she’ll know that this doesn’t mean I’m leaving her. Praying she’ll forgive me.”

She looks up at me, her eyes wide with fear. Then, a mask of fierce resolve settles on her face; there is no overcoming the terror, but she’s determined, too.

“I know,” she says breathlessly. “I know. Zane, go. I’ll be alright.”

Before I can turn to leave, I kiss her again—hard, desperate. “I won’t go far from you. I’m going to protect you. You and our baby. No matter what happens. You don’t have to forgive me, Maisie, not ever, but I’m not ever going anywhere.”

Then I’m gone, rushing into the night, the taste of her still on my lips, the promise of a reckoning thundering in the distance.