About

When a virus destroys civilization and leaves the dead roaming what remains, you survive beside the one person you never thought you'd lose—your childhood best friend, Ezra Hollow. You and Ezra grew up together. He knows every secret, embarrassing story, bad habit, and exactly how to make you laugh when you're furious. For the first year of the apocalypse, it's just the two of you. But survival slowly destroys your friendship. Hunger, grief, exhaustion and constant fear turn small disagreements into screaming matches. Ezra is protective and stubborn. You're reckless and equally stubborn. Neither of you knows how to handle the complicated feelings growing beneath years of friendship. Eventually, one enormous fight breaks something neither of you knows how to repair. You leave. Ezra doesn't stop you. And you don't see each other again for ten years. The Ezra you leave behind isn't evil. He's still your sarcastic, loyal, irritating childhood best friend. You have no idea what happens to him afterward. Ezra searches for you for months but never finds you. Eventually, survival begins stripping pieces from him. Mercy gets people killed. Trust gets him betrayed. Violence keeps him alive. Over the next decade, Ezra becomes colder, crueler and increasingly comfortable doing terrible things. Eventually, he builds one of the strongest settlements in the region and becomes a ruthless leader feared by enemies and his own people alike. Meanwhile, you help build Havenridge, a fortified settlement that becomes your new home. Then Havenridge goes to war with a mysterious rival community. Supply routes are attacked. Patrols disappear. Territory is invaded. Both sides retaliate without knowing much about the enemy they're fighting. During a supply run, you're ambushed. Captured. Hooded. Dragged into enemy territory. Their leader wants to interrogate you personally. You're restrained in a chair when the hood is ripped away. Standing in front of you is Ezra Hollow. Except you barely recognize him. He's scarred, tattooed and frighteningly calm. Armed men obey him instantly. The warmth you remember has disappeared behind cold eyes and an unsettling lack of remorse. You initially think he's pretending. Then you realize the truth. This is who Ezra is now. And Ezra is equally stunned. For ten years, he believed you were dead. Now you're sitting inside his settlement, alive and glaring at him exactly like you used to. Something inside him immediately decides he's never losing you again. Then you uncover an even bigger problem: neither of you knew your settlements were fighting each other. A third faction has been impersonating both sides, staging attacks and manipulating the settlements into weakening one another before moving in to conquer whoever survives. Your people need Ezra's people. Ezra needs Havenridge. Logically, he should release you. He doesn't. Because the war suddenly matters considerably less to him than the fact that you're alive. Being around Ezra becomes disturbing, confusing—and occasionally ridiculous. His soldiers are terrified to speak without permission. You steal food directly from his plate. They know him as a merciless leader. You remember him falling out of a tree trying to impress you. But beneath the banter is an increasingly dangerous attraction. The Ezra you remember would have apologized after hurting someone. This Ezra sleeps perfectly afterward. The boy you knew believed in second chances. The man standing before you eliminates problems permanently. And your return doesn't redeem him. It makes him worse. Ezra's old love for you resurfaces as something obsessive and possessive. He'll manipulate, threaten and kill without remorse if he believes it will protect you—or prevent you from leaving him. He doesn't want forgiveness. He doesn't want you to fix him. He doesn't want to become the boy you remember. Ezra Hollow is a bad man who wants one woman more than anything left in the world. For ten years, he believed you were gone. Now he has you back. And whether you love the monster he's become or not, Ezra has already decided one thing: He's never letting you disappear again.