The Safe Zone - Reckoning (Book 2)

Chapter 1: Into the Unknown

Lena:

The cold hit me like a slap the moment we stepped beyond the walls of the Safe Zone. I had known it would be different out here, but nothing could have prepared me for this. The wind howled like a living thing, its icy fingers snaking through the thin fabric of my jacket, cutting straight to the bone. The world outside the walls was stark, lonely, and vast, stretching out into the unknown like a gaping maw ready to swallow us whole.

I glanced over at Ethan, who was walking a few steps ahead. He had that determined look, saying he was focused and wouldn't let anything get in his way. But I knew him well enough to see the tension in his shoulders, the way his eyes darted over the landscape, scanning every shadow, every crumbled building for signs of danger. We both knew what we'd left behind, but the uncertainty of what lay ahead gawed at me.

We were truly alone now.

The Safe Zone had been a prison, but it had also been familiar. There had been rules, even if they were unfair. There had been order, even if it was enforced by fear. Out here, beyond the walls, there were no rules, no order. Just chaos and the promise of survival—if we were lucky.

The air smelled different out here, too. It was stale but different from the way the Safe Zone had been. There was a thickness to it, a weight that settled on my lungs with every breath as if the world had grown tired of trying to sustain life. Everything felt harsher, sharper, as though the collapse had hardened even the land. The buildings that had once stood tall and proud were now nothing more than skeletal ruins, broken and crumbling into the earth. The streets were cracked and littered with debris, remnants of a world that had long forgotten what it meant to be alive.

I adjusted the straps on my pack, feeling its familiar weight pressing down my shoulders. It wasn't much—just the essentials we had managed to grab before fleeing—but it was all we had now. My rifle was slung over my back, the cold metal pressing against my spine with every step. It gave me a strange sense of comfort, knowing it was there, knowing I had something to fight with, even if I didn't want to think about what I might have to fight.

"We should head north," Ethan said, his voice cutting through the wind, calm but firm. He didn't look back at me, his eyes still scanning the horizon. "There are fewer patrols that way. If we can reach the outskirts of the old city, we can take shelter and figure out our next move."

I nodded, even though he couldn't see me. North. It sounded as good a direction as any. I just wanted to keep moving, to put as much distance between us and the Safe Zone as possible. The farther we were from Nora and her Enforcers, the better.

The Safe Zone had been a trap, a gilded cage dressed up as safety. We'd seen behind the curtain and learned the truth about the Directive, about the things Nora was willing to do to maintain control. We'd barely made it out alive, and even now, I wasn't sure how long that would last.

My heart thudded painfully as I forced myself to keep pace with Ethan. There were moments, brief flickers of doubt, where I wondered if we had made the right choice—leaving the Safe Zone, abandoning everything we knew. But then I'd think about the people we'd left behind, trapped inside those walls, unaware of the poison being fed to them, and I knew we couldn't have stayed.

We couldn't have stayed, but that didn't mean we knew where we were going.

Ethan:

The air out here tasted like dust and rusted metal. It clung to the back of my throat, gritty and sharp, a reminder of what we had walked into. I'd spent years thinking about what was beyond the walls of the Safe Zone, imagining the world that had been left behind when everything fell apart. But seeing it now, standing in the middle of the wreckage, the reality was much worse than I had pictured.