Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

2 06 A.C. (After Collapse)

Kendra Riley

I’d always known tomorrow would come, but the fact that it was almost here didn’t make it any easier.

It was my birthday. I turned nineteen in just a few more hours and that meant I was going to be taken.

The streets felt colder tonight, even though summer had long settled over the city, thick and humid. The air clung to my skin, heavy with the scent of rank mildew and rain-soaked concrete. Trees sprouted from the cracks in the asphalt, their roots curling over rusted cars and pushing through shattered sidewalks. Ivy snaked up the sides of once-mighty skyscrapers, their glass windows long since shattered, leaving dark, empty sockets that stared down at us like the eyes of forgotten giants.

“Do you think it hurts?” Mariah asked, her voice cutting through the silence. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a messy braid that hung over one shoulder, and she was chewing her lip, gnawing at it the way she always did when she got nervous.

Beside her, Lia shrugged, kicking a rock down the cracked pavement. “Probably,” she muttered. “I mean, it’s not like they care if it does, right? They just take you and… that’s that.”

Her words hung in the air, and for a moment, all three of us were silent, the weight of them settling over us like the thick fog that had started to roll in from the river.

They still had another year of freedom left though. They were only eighteen.

Not like me. My freedom ended tomorrow.

I glanced at them both, my chest tightening with nervousness, but I pushed it away as best as I could, not wanting to think about what tomorrow might bring.

And the day after that…

“Don’t,” I said, the word harsher than I meant it to be. “I don’t want to think about it.”

They fell silent, but I could see the unease flickering in their eyes, that same fear that had been gnawing at me for weeks, the one I kept trying to bury. It didn’t work—not really. Tomorrow, they’d come for me, and I’d be dragged into the nightmare that waited for me beyond the familiar crumbling walls of my home.

The nightmare that meant that I would be held down, forced to spread my legs, and then I’d be bred.

We walked in silence, our footsteps echoing through the abandoned streets. Buildings towered over us, their upper floors swallowed by thick blankets of moss and vines. The skeletons of billboards loomed overhead, faded and rusted, their words long erased by the wind and rain, like they were ghosts of a world that had long ago forgotten how to speak.

“What if you run?” Mariah’s voice was barely a whisper, but in the silence, it was as loud as a scream.

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “You know what happens if you run.”

Lia nodded, hugging herself. “They hunt you down. And then it’s worse.”

We all knew the stories, passed down from those who had seen it happen. No one escaped the wolves. You could try, and some did, but they always came back broken—if they came back at all. They always made examples of the ones who ran, and I had no doubt that I would be any different.

Running wasn’t an option. Everyone knew that.

Mariah shuddered, her eyes darting to the shadows cast by the skeletal remains of an overturned bus, its rusted frame half-buried in a tangle of ivy.

“How do you think they do it?” she asked, quieter this time, like she was afraid of the answer.

“Enough.” My voice came out harsh again, but I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t let them talk about it, not when I was just hours away from finding out for myself. I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms, the pain grounding me and keeping the panic from swallowing me whole.

We turned a corner, and the wind shifted, carrying with it the scent of rotting wood and something faintly sweet, like the remnants of a long-forgotten fire. The buildings here were even worse—great, hulking structures that leaned against each other like drunks in an alleyway, their concrete walls cracked and bulging, their metal supports twisted and rusted. Trees had sprouted through the floors of some of them, their branches spilling out of shattered windows, reaching toward the sky like fingers grasping for something they’d never reach.

“I’m sorry,” Mariah said quietly, falling back a step. “It’s just… it’s hard not to think about it, you know? We’re going to lose you tomorrow and we can’t be sure you will even come back.”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair, feeling the dirt and grime that had become a permanent part of my life. I knew what they were feeling. The three of us had grown up together, had always had each other’s backs through thick and thin.

I remembered nursing Lia back to health after she’d caught the black sickness, a horrible evolution of the bubonic plague ages ago. Mariah and I had ventured out into the far reaches of the city, to the places where the seedy underground prospered, just to buy her the antibiotics she needed. She’d almost died, but the medicine had saved her just in time.

She’d been only thirteen.

The world wasn’t a kind place, and it hadn’t been for a very long time.

“I know,” I said, softer this time. “I just… I need tonight, okay? I need tonight to be normal. Just one more normal night.”

“Normal,” Lia echoed, her tone tinged with bitterness. “Nothing’s been normal since the Collapse, Kendra.”

She was right, of course. But it didn’t change the fact that, for a few more hours, I wanted to pretend that the wolves weren’t out there. That they weren’t waiting for me, counting down the minutes until they could drag me away.

We walked in silence for a while longer, the only sounds the crunch of broken glass beneath our boots and the distant creaking of the wind through the overgrown skyscrapers. It was a city frozen in time, decaying slowly, piece by piece, just like everything else.

Ahead of us, a flock of crows took off from the ledge of an old office building, their dark wings cutting across the sky like jagged shards of obsidian. I watched them go, a knot forming in my throat, and tried to imagine what it would be like to fly. To have wings, to just lift off and leave everything behind.

To escape whatever tomorrow might bring.

“You’ll be okay,” Mariah said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. She reached out, touching my arm, and gave me a sad, hopeful smile. “You’ll make it out okay, Kendra. You know it.”

I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to believe her more than anything. But as I looked out at the city—the ruined buildings, the twisted metal, the overgrown streets—I felt the weight of tomorrow settle over me like a shroud, and I knew that once the wolves came, nothing would ever be the same again.

“Let’s keep moving,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper. “We still have a few hours left.”

We reached the mall just as the first streetlights flickered to life, the soft hum of electricity filling the air all around us. This sector was one of the few that still had power, though it was rationed to certain hours and shut off after midnight. Officially, the place was locked down, sealed off after some fool got themselves electrocuted trying to tamper with the grid a few years back, but Mariah knew a way in. She always seemed to figure out some way in, no matter where we needed to go.

“Come on,” she whispered, tugging at a piece of plywood that had been halfheartedly nailed over a side entrance. It shifted with a groan, and she slipped through, her dark silhouette melting into the shadows beyond. Lia went next, moving with the kind of grace that always made me feel clumsy by comparison. I took one last look at the empty street behind us, half-expecting to see glowing eyes watching from the darkness, then slipped inside, letting the plywood slide back into place.

We stood there for a moment, just inside the doorway, letting our eyes adjust. The air smelled stale, thick with the scent of dust and mildew, but there was something else beneath it—a faint, metallic tang that made my skin prickle. The mall stretched out before us, its lengthy corridors lined with glass storefronts, some shattered, others smeared with grime. Ivy had worked its way in through the cracks, snaking across the tile floors and wrapping around the skeletal remains of old mannequins that stood half-dressed in tattered dusty clothes no one would ever wear again.

“Feels like a tomb,” Lia muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “I hate this place.”

“It’s not that bad,” Mariah said, already moving ahead, her fingers trailing along the wall. “I mean, sure, it’s creepy as hell, but at least we’ve got power. Come on, Kendra, don’t just stand there.”

I followed her, keeping my footsteps light. I’d been here before, a hundred times probably, but it felt different tonight, heavier somehow. Maybe it was because I knew it’d be the last time in what would probably be a very long time.

If I even came back at all…

“Let’s not stay too long,” I said, my voice sounding too loud in the empty space. “The patrols?—”

“—won’t be here for hours,” Mariah finished, rolling her eyes. “We’ll be gone by then, I promise.”

“I know,” I said, but even as I said it, I felt the knot in my stomach tighten. I wanted to enjoy this, I really did, but all I could think about was tomorrow.

About what the wolves were going to do to me.

About the fact that I’d be forced to bear their pups until I wasn’t of any use to them anymore. I shivered and looked down at the floor, trying to tell myself to live in the moment and not worry about tomorrow, but it was hard.

It was so very hard.

We reached the old movie theater at the back of the mall, the one with the neon sign that still flickered on and off every now and then, casting a dull, pinkish glow over the cracked tile. Mariah pushed open the door, and we stepped inside, the thick carpet muffling our footsteps.

“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got tonight,” Mariah said, making her way up to the projector room. She had this ritual—always pretending to be a fancy theater director or something, as if it made all of this feel less sad and broken. “I’m thinking something classic, something we can actually pretend is worth watching.”

“Just pick something,” Lia said, flopping into one of the ragged seats and propping her feet up on the one in front of her. “It’s not like we’re going to get to do this again.”

Mariah shot her a look, then rummaged through the pile of old film canisters. I watched them both, trying to ignore the cutting sting of Lia’s words. My throat tightened, and I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice steady.

“You know you’re picking something terrible,” I called up to Mariah. “You always do.”

“That’s a lie,” she shot back, but she was smiling, and for a second, it felt normal. “I have amazing taste, thank you very much.” She paused, pulling out a battered reel with faded lettering. “Oh, here we go. The Breakfast Club . What do you say? Some absolutely ancient teen drama to keep our minds off the apocalypse?”

Lia groaned, but I nodded, smiling despite myself. “Perfect,” I said. “Let’s pretend we’re just normal humans living a normal human night.”

“Normal?” Mariah’s laugh was sharp, tinged with something sad. “Kendra, we’ve never been normal.”

I wanted to argue, but what was the point? Instead, I sank into a seat next to Lia, and we waited as Mariah fiddled with the projector, muttering curses under her breath. Finally, the screen flickered to life, pale light cutting through the darkness, and for a moment, we were just three girls watching a movie in a forgotten corner of a dying world.

We laughed at the cheesy dialogue, at the terrible hair and clothes, at the way everything seemed so easy and small compared to what we faced every day. I leaned back, letting the sounds wash over me, trying to forget about the wolves, about what would happen tomorrow. But it was there, lurking at the edge of my thoughts, like a cursed shadow I couldn’t quite shake.

At one point, Lia reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight. “You’re going to be okay,” she whispered, but there was doubt in her eyes, and it made my chest ache.

“I know,” I lied, squeezing back. “I know.”

But as I watched the characters on screen, their faces flickering in the dim light, I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d ever felt this way—this kind of bone-deep fear that made it hard to breathe, that turned every heartbeat into a countdown. And I wondered if they’d have been brave enough to face it, the way I’d have to tomorrow.

“I wish we could stay like this forever,” Mariah said suddenly, her voice breaking the silence. “Just… us… sitting here, watching some stupid movie. No wolves. No rules. Just us.”

I looked at her, at the way the light from the projector caught in her eyes, turning them bright and hopeful. And for a moment, I almost believed it was possible. Almost.

“Maybe we can,” I said, forcing a smile. “Just for tonight.”

And so we watched. We laughed. We pretended the world wasn’t crumbling outside, that tomorrow wasn’t waiting to swallow me whole. But as the credits rolled, and the power flickered out, plunging us back into darkness, I felt it again—that tightening in my chest, the cold certainty that this was it. That this would be the last time we’d ever be like this.

“We should go,” Lia said, her voice small, and I nodded, even though I didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to face what was waiting for me when the sun rose over the horizon in the morning.

“Yeah,” I whispered, standing and dusting off my jeans. “Yeah, I guess we should.”

And as we made our way back through the darkened mall, our footsteps echoing through the empty halls, I tried to memorize every second. The sound of their laughter. The feel of their hands in mine. The way, just for a moment, I felt like I wasn’t afraid, but the fear came back after that. It always did.

Just like tomorrow would always inevitably come.

The walk back was quiet, the three of us moving in silence through the empty streets, each step taking us further from the mall and closer to the reality we’d tried to leave behind.

Our sector was on the outskirts of the city, far enough from the heart of it that we rarely saw patrols, but close enough to the seedy underground where you could find just about anything if you knew where to look. I’d always hated it here, hated the way the shadows felt thicker, like they could swallow you whole, but tonight, I found some strange comfort in it. It was familiar.

It was home.

Our apartment was on the third floor of an old tenement building, one of the few still standing after the Collapse. Most of the windows had been shattered years ago, replaced with mismatched sheets of metal and plywood, and the stairs creaked underfoot, threatening to give out every time we went up. But somehow, we’d made it our own. The door was covered in faded stickers that Lia had scavenged from an old toy store, and Mariah had painted the walls with wild, sweeping colors that almost made you forget the place was falling apart. Almost.

“Home, sweet home,” Mariah muttered, kicking off her boots and tossing her jacket onto the battered couch. She flopped down beside it, throwing her arms over her head and closing her eyes like she could just pretend for a minute that everything was fine.

Lia wandered into the tiny kitchen, rummaging around in the cupboard until she pulled out a dented metal flask, the label long since worn off.

“Moonshine,” she said, holding it up with a little grin. “Figured tonight called for something stronger than water.”

I managed a smile, though it felt shaky. “You went to the underground without me?”

“You were working at the food bank that day,” Lia said with a shrug, handing me the flask. “But don’t worry, I saved the good stuff for tonight.”

I took a swig, the liquid burning all the way down and warming me from the inside out. It wasn’t great—hell, it wasn’t even good—but it was better than nothing, and right now, that was enough. I passed it to Mariah, who took a long pull before handing it back to Lia, and for a while, the three of us just sat there, the silence stretching out, comfortable but heavy, like we were all waiting for someone to say the one thing we’d been avoiding all night.

“Are you scared?” Lia asked finally, breaking the quiet, her voice barely above a whisper.

I swallowed hard, the taste of the moonshine still sharp on my tongue.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice cracking a little. “Yeah, I’m scared.”

Mariah looked at me then, her eyes softening, and reached out to squeeze my hand. “You’ll be okay,” she said, but I could hear the doubt in her voice, could see it written all over her face. “I mean… it’s just the breeding, right? It’s… it’s not like they kill you.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” I laughed, though there was no humor in it, just this hollow, aching sound that bounced off the walls. I took another swig of the moonshine, trying to drown the fear, but it just sat there, heavy and bitter, refusing to be washed away. “They’ll take me, and I… I might never see you again.”

“You don’t know that,” Lia said quickly, her voice more cutting than usual, like she was trying to convince herself as much as me. “Most girls come back. They do. You know they do.”

“And what about the handful that never return?” I asked, looking at her. “What about them, Lia?”

She didn’t answer, just looked away, her fingers playing with a loose thread on the couch.

“I heard… I heard some women actually liked it,” Mariah said suddenly, her words stumbling over each other like she was afraid they’d bite her. “Like, it wasn’t as bad as everyone says.” She looked at me, eyes wide, almost pleading with me. “Maybe it won’t be so awful, you know? Maybe… maybe you’ll even enjoy it.”

“You really believe that?” I snapped, harsher than I meant to, and immediately felt a wave of guilt as Mariah flinched. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, rubbing a hand over my face. “I just… I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You can,” Lia said firmly, meeting my gaze, and for a moment, I almost believed her. “You’ve always been the strongest out of all of us.”

“That’s not true,” I said, shaking my head. “If I was strong, I’d have found a way to run. I’d have… I’d have done something.” My voice broke, and I could feel the tears prickling at the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Not tonight. Not in front of them. Not when they would be in the same position as me in less than a year.

“You didn’t run because you’re not stupid,” Lia said, her tone gentler now. “You know they’d find you, and it’d be worse. And you know we’d never leave you. Not ever.”

“Not ever,” Mariah echoed, giving my hand another squeeze, and I nodded, even though I didn’t trust myself to speak.

We passed the flask around a few more times, the moonshine slowly dulling my fear, until the room started to blur around the edges, and I could almost pretend that this was just another night. That tomorrow wasn’t waiting to tear us apart.

“Remember that time we climbed to the top of the old church?” Lia said suddenly, her words slurring a little, and I laughed, shaking my head.

“You mean the time you almost fell and broke your neck?” I replied.

“Hey, I didn’t fall,” Lia protested, but she was smiling now, the kind of smile that made her look younger, softer, like the girl she’d been when I’d first met her. “You pulled me up, remember?”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice softer now. “I remember.”

We sat there for a while longer, talking about stupid things, memories that felt like they belonged to someone else. And for a little while, it worked. I forgot about the wolves, about the fear, about tomorrow. I forgot about everything except the warmth of my friends beside me, the sound of their laughter, and the way the moonshine burned all the way down.

Eventually, though, the flask ran dry, and the silence crept back in, heavier than before. Lia yawned, stretching out on the couch, and Mariah curled up beside her, their eyes already fluttering shut. I stayed where I was, staring at the cracked ceiling, the moonlight filtering through the slats of our broken blinds, casting strange shadows across the walls.

I wished I had more time. What I wouldn’t do for a little more time…

“Happy birthday, Kendra,” Mariah mumbled sleepily, her voice thick with exhaustion, and I felt my chest tighten.

“Yeah,” I whispered, more to myself than to them. “Happy birthday to me.”