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“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the word thick with unshed grief. “I have to do this—not just for us, but for everyone in the Zone. I have to right my wrongs somehow.”

He stirs, but doesn’t wake.

I lean in, press a kiss to his cheek—light, almost nothing—and let myself cry, just for a second. Then I stand, wipe my eyes, and walk out.

I don’t look back.

I start toward the exit, each step lighter than the last. The virus is in my pocket, the only map in my head.

Outside, the Zone waits. So does the node. So does the end of everything.

I wonder if, when I press the button, I’ll remember who I did it for.

Probably not.

But maybe that’s the point.

Lance

Sleep always ends for me in stages: first the ache in my lower back, then the heat of another body, then the snap into alertness. Only this time, the heat is gone, replaced by a void so sharp it punches through the last remnants of dream.

I reach across the bed for Diana. Fingers land on cold sheet, nothing else. I pause, hand splayed. The spot where she should be is just an indentation, memory pressed into fabric, already vanishing.

My eyes open. No haze, no grogginess, just the immediate, stinging awareness that something is wrong.

“Dee?” My voice catches, rough as sand. I try again, louder: “Diana?”

Nothing. Just the hum of the air exchangers and the persistent drip of condensation from the ceiling.

Every instinct kicks in at once... The bed is still warm. The door is unlatched.

On the shelf by the bed, a piece of paper is propped against a chipped mug. I see it right away, but the color beside it is what stops my breath—a single, electric-blue flower, petals as thin as skin. I know the name, but not the science: forget-me-not. Myosotis, Dee told me, in the old tongue.

I cross to the shelf. The paper is folded twice... My hands aren’t steady, but I open the note anyway.

The flower falls. It lands on the back of my wrist, almost weightless.

I stare at it, waiting for the meaning to snap into place. It doesn’t. Not at first.

I focus on the words. Five, written in blocky, uneven print: I will always love you.

My fist closes around the note, crumpling the edges. The Authority mask... cracks, just a little. I taste bile at the back of my throat.

No. You won’t. The thought hits with the force of a hammer. She found it. The thing I saw six months ago and buried deeper than any Authority secret, because I never knew if the files were genuine or just another layer of programmed paranoia. This is her apology for the mess she thinks she made.

I will always love you means I’m gone, and you should forget me. But how can I forget? Even with the monthly dose of memory suppressant the Authority pushed into my veins until the day I first saw her in the market, she was etched into my soul. Whether it was wiring or heart, I don’t care. She belongs here. With me.

I drop the flower onto the sheet and pace the room in a tight arc... The old training never accounted for Dee—or for the realization that my life, my love, was built on a pile of Authority’s calculated lies.

I rub my left hand with my right... The gesture is supposed to calm me, but it only reminds me that something is missing.

I stare at the note again... She thinks she’s saving us all. That’s what this is.

I let out a sound, half-laugh, half-curse. “Fuck’s sake, Dee. You don’t get to decide what I remember.”

The thought of her walking into the node alone, taking on Authority black ops with nothing but her own stubbornness, is almost enough to make me break everything in this fucking room. Instead, I reach for my jacket, pull it on with a violence that splits the seam at the wrist...

I grab the boots off the floor, jam them on. No time for socks, no time for anything.