It was a job—nothing heroic, nothing glorious. Just dirty.
Jort lay beneath another wrecked car, fingers deep in the guts of the machine as he coaxed the last threads of gasoline from the fuel line. The tanks were all dry these days, but every car still held a sip in its tubes. He collected it all, drop by drop, for the small encampment he had joined.
It meant he had to travel farther.
Each run took him deeper into the wasteland to make up for the fuel he burned.
Today he’d pushed too far.
Too close to home.
From a hilltop he lifted his binoculars and surveyed the town where he was born.
Quiet.
Windows shattered.
Smoke drifting lazily over the square.
The gym—of all places—still active.
He shook his head.
If those meatheads survived, nothing good could come from it.
Turning away, he decided to take the long road in the opposite direction.
“Jort?”
A weak voice drifted out of the bushes.
“Shit,” he muttered.
He reached for his knife to look intimidating, but fumbled it.
The blade clattered uselessly at his feet.
A woman stepped out of the brush—barely dressed, trembling, her back striped red with lashes. Blood trickled from a cut near her left eye.
“Jort? Is that you?” she gasped, half in relief, half in disbelief.
“Liz?”
His mouth fell open.
Liz.
His first love, his first heartbreak, and—if he was honest—his first everything else.
Despite the blood, dirt, and whatever else clung to her skin, he saw her beneath it. The same girl he’d once sworn he’d marry.
“What happened?” he asked softly.
“There’s a Ring Society,” she said, her voice trembling. “A group convinced they’re destined to survive because they’re strong.”
Her eyes locked onto his. Jort tried—and failed—not to look her up and down. Shame burned through him as he snapped back to her face.
Without a word, he shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She raised an eyebrow, a familiar spark flickering in her eye.
“Men,” she muttered, pulling it tight.
“They think they’re chosen,” Liz continued. “The strong. So they try to make their society strong with… their offspring.”
Jort blinked, processing. It got easier now that she was covered.
“You got out,” he said, smiling despite himself. “Come with me. There’s a gathering that’ll take you in.”
He held out a hand.
She didn’t take his hand.
She couldn’t.
But the way her breath caught—just for a heartbeat—told him she wished she could.
“There are four others,” she said. “Women. Only used for their wombs.”
Her voice hardened.
“They kill them when they’re no longer useful.”
Jort’s smile died.
“I can’t leave them,” Liz said.
Jort raised a brow.
“Yes, you can,” he said, though what he meant—what he felt—was:
Run. Run now. Don’t look back.
***
They sat for a few minutes. Jort shared his rations, going over the story once more.
He could not imagine how this was a good idea.
“So you want to rescue them all?”
He shook his head slowly, praying she had changed after all these years.
Praying she had finally learned that this—this exact kind of reckless mercy—was how she ended up in that hell to begin with.
“Liz, that’s suicide.”
A plea.
One she didn’t even hear.
She looked as heartbreakingly familiar as the day he first met her. Long ago. Before everything. Before the world turned to meat and madness.
“We can’t leave them,” Liz said, smiling with relief—because she already knew she had him. After all this time, she still held that part of him. For a heartbeat, she pitied him. Would he still help if it were someone else?
“They’re being used. Terribly.”
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Her eyes glistened.
“I was being used.”
He looked at her then—really looked—showing oceans of grief and terror beneath a surface held together by sheer, furious resolve. The kind of resolve only hatred can forge.
“Liz…” Jort hated himself even before he said it. “Do you even have a plan?”
He looked down. His stomach twisted with that old, pure anxiety—the kind that, before the madness, would’ve emptied his guts onto the dirt. But the madness teaches you things: in this world, the ones who retch don’t live long.
Liz eased herself down beside him. Every sudden sound made her flinch; she knew they were hunting her. She pointed toward the pickup truck—his pickup truck—loaded with jerrycans, some filled with gasoline.
“You remember that trick we used to do with the horn and the car alarm?” she asked.
Jort stared at the truck. At the fuel he’d hauled. At the jerrycans that would get him lynched if anyone even suspected what he was planning.
Then he looked back at Liz.
“They’ll kill me,” he said.
Liz rose and stepped toward him. With every inch she closed, Jort felt his resolve warm, soften, melt. When they were nose to nose, she brushed a hand through his hair—like she used to.
“We don’t need anyone else,” she whispered, and kissed him.
Jort felt the sincerity in it.
Felt the truth.
Felt the old dream flicker alive.
And despite everything—despite knowing exactly how this would end—
he felt himself ready to cave.
Liz.
His Liz.
Still his ruinous dream.
***
And now here he was. He had smooth-talked his way in as a gasoline trader. Now he was sitting and eating with the leader of the Ring. He looked at his plate.
He would not touch what lay on that plate.
Better get on with the plan.
Oh, the plan.
Brutal in its simplicity. Horrible in how it played out.
Barely minutes earlier, Jort had been invited by the leader and joined him for a drink in his private room, wondering whether Liz could actually pull it off. Wondering whether he would have to face it—run or die.
Or worse than die.
A nightmare unfolding in slow motion.
He cursed Liz under his breath. She knew exactly what she was doing when she didn’t tell him the full details. The food. The men twisted by hunger and power. If she had, he would have backed out, fled back into the desert without a second thought.
He nodded politely as the leader rambled—some story, some moral justification for the entire operation. Jort could never tell with these types. Did they actually believe themselves? Or was it just “in for a penny, in for a pound”?
Too deep into the desert now.
Too invested in horror to admit it.
“So the protein is basically just what nature does,” the leader said, adjusting his glasses. The right lens had a crack running through it. “A mouse does it with its own offspring.”
He was well-fed. That said enough.
In times like these, the well-fed were far more dangerous than the starving.
Liz knew that.
Jort knew that.
If Liz failed—if she didn’t do her part—his ruse would fall apart the moment they checked his actual supply. Not a lot left. He’d used most of it to create—
Ah.
He saw the leader’s grin spread.
A slow nod. Knowing eyes.
It’s time.
Liz was nowhere in sight.
She ran—again, Jort wasn’t sure. The feeling was there. He felt something sink inside him. He knew this would happen.
Used again.
By the same girl, twice in one lifetime.
For one second Jort considered waiting.
The leader rose. Another muscular guard stepped into position, slowly circling Jort like a predator enjoying the ritual of it.
Reflex, not courage, saved him.
He pressed the car-door opener.
A small click.
A prayer disguised as a gesture.
He cursed Liz—quietly, fondly—for old times’ sake.
She still looked beautiful.
Even here.
Even now.
The first explosion hit.
Jort bolted.
The ground shook violently, making the large man cling to a chair for balance.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
The heat would come soon.
Jort sprinted for his pickup.
Inside, he looked once more for Liz.
“Dammit, Liz.”
He shook his head as a heavy fist slammed into the truck bed.
The eyes of the man behind him left no doubt about his intentions.
***
Jort was speeding away, burning through his last gasoline.
La Bohème.
The music boomed through the car, too loud for comfort, too soft to drown his thoughts. Jort sat hunched over the wheel, his skin an ugly pale-green mix of shock and nausea. Every breath threatened to turn into a retch.
La Bohème.
As a good American, he understood none of it. The French rolled past him like water over glass. All he knew was the feeling the song gave him—something warm, something from before the madness. A reminder of a life where guilt hadn’t yet sharpened its teeth.
?a voulait dire on est heureux.
It meant: We were happy.
After today, he needed that lie more than air.
Stress hormones rattled through his veins.
Had he done the right thing?
Could he live with himself?
He doubted it.
La Bohème.
He turned the volume up. A long breath filled his chest—an old trick to slow his racing heart.
La Bohème.
In the rear-view mirror he saw smoke rising. His windows were closed, the fan off, and still he gagged at the scent.
Not real smoke.
Memory smoke.
Phantom burning.
A flash lit the world behind him.
The bang followed, slow but inevitable.
Jort braced himself.
Behind him, the world burned.
Ahead of him, the song lied.
