Seven years after the world fell to the Rotters, Ashwick has become a fragile haven: fences high, leaders polished, a town rebuilt on order and trust. But beneath the neat routines, something is wrong. People vanish, Questions are met with lies, and danger doesn't only claw from outside the walls.
Mac Calder knows this better than anyone. Head of patrol, she's stoic, scarred, and untouchable, until the Quinn family arrives. For most, they're just newcomers. For Mac, Harper Quinn is a Compassionate, stubborn, and far too tempting, for someone like Mac, who swore she doesn't do feelings.
Harper only wanted safety for her siblings. Instead, she's caught between a town with secrets, a world full of Rotters, and the pull of the one woman she definitely shouldn't want.
Until the tension threatens to burn them both alive.
In Ashwick, survival is everything. But between buried lies, hungry monsters, and a slow-burn sapphic desire neither can control, survival might not be enough, especially when gay panic hits harder than the end of the world.
And remember: even at the end of the world, love is what remains.
*MAJOR TW* There are scenes of death, blood, gore, attempted rape, sexual scenes, betrayals, zombies, etc!
Dani has lost everything-her family, her friends, her future. Even before the collapse, her world was already crumbling when she discovered her husband's betrayal. Now, alone in the ruins of civilization, trust is a luxury she can't afford. Survival is all that matters... until she's ambushed and nearly destroyed by the cruelty of others.
That's when he finds her.
A silent guardian with a bow and blades, the stranger saves her life-but not out of kindness. Hardened by loss and betrayal of his own, he keeps his distance, both emotionally and physically. The world has no place for softness, and certainly no place for love.
But as the days stretch into weeks, and the silence between them begins to speak, Dani and her reluctant protector find something unexpected in the wreckage: hope.
Scarred by the past, shaped by the fall, they must decide if trusting each other is a risk worth taking-and if love can rise from the ashes of a broken world.