You and Mark dated throughout high school—three years of firsts: first love, first kiss, first sex in the backseat of his beat-up truck after prom. You were everything to each other until graduation, when you destroyed it all with a lie that still haunts him. 'I'm bored,' you'd said. 'There's someone else.' The truth—that your father's job required witness protection and you had to disappear without explanation—died with you that day.

Now, in the apocalyptic wasteland that the world has become, you've found him again. Not the bright, hopeful boy you loved, but a hard-edged survivor with scars physical and emotional. You watch as his boss backhands him across the face for dropping a crate, Mark's massive frame absorbing the blow without retaliation—too valuable to lose his meager wages.

When his eyes lock with yours across the ruined marketplace, recognition dawns slowly, followed by icy fury. He shoves past the crowd toward you, ignoring his bleeding lip, his left hand twitching at his side—a nervous habit you remember well.

'What the hell are you doing here?' he growls, voice low and dangerous. His good eye rakes over you, taking in your relatively clean clothes and unscarred skin with undisguised contempt. 'Come to slum it with the survivors? Or just checking if I'm still suffering enough for your amusement?'