Rebel Darling

By Valerie Best

Find someone who makes the world worth saving.

In what was once New York City, where the government has fallen and the violent, martial Keepers now rule, teenage Hannah Darling possesses the cure to the world’s deadly virus within her veins. When she's captured by the Keepers and sentenced to death for leading the Resistance, her only hope lies in Anthony Fletcher--once a childhood friend, then a school rival, and now son of her greatest enemy. No one is more surprised than Hannah when Anthony is willing to hide her. No one except Anthony himself.
Anthony barely recognizes the wounded and traumatized Hannah as the girl who launched the Resistance at only 15. But Hannah is still determined to end the Keepers violent rule, and she's now desperate enough to escape the city towards a CDC that might be in ruins. So she sets off on a dangerous cross-country odyssey with Fletcher as her reluctant companion. Together, they face not only the infected, Zombie-like Strangers, but the relentless pursuit of the Keepers. As their bond deepens, they discover startling truths about themselves and each other, realizing that, like their pasts, their futures are irrevocably intertwined.
But when betrayal strikes from an unexpected source, Hannah must race against time to secure the vaccine that could save humanity, unaware that Anthony—the boy with the secrets, the boy she’s fallen for—is the one who holds the power to save their world ... or let it burn.
Combining non-stop action with a page-turning enemies to lovers romance, Rebel Darling is the perfect YA novel for fans of The Last of Us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: 8th Note Press
• Release date: Nov 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961795105

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

SORRY BOYS, I DON’T DO AUTOGRAPHS

Hannah didn’t enjoy the ride to her execution.

Exhausted, she had drifted off, but woke with a jerk as the truck bucked over the uneven road.

You can still do it, you know.

She peered through the dim light of the transport truck to a gaunt-faced man sitting on the long bench opposite her. He looked old, but she couldn’t be sure; prison aged them fast.

Do what?

Defeat them, the man said, his gaze intent. I followed your group’s efforts. I listened to the radio broadcasts. Read the pamphlets.

Hannah leaned back and stretched her legs out in front of her. I hope that’s not what landed you here.

He shook his head. I’m a Susceptible. I was always going to end up here. He leaned forward. The Keepers want us to think they’re prepared, that they’re organized, but they’re not.

She sighed. We know that. There are authors of the Keepers’ declaration who have been trying to get out for years. Since the raids started. But— she shook her head, even as it pounded with the effort, the bastards just have more resources.

Cat-like, the man moved across the truck to sit next to her. She leaned away as he spoke close to her face.

There are many in their ranks who lose faith. The ship has sprung a thousand leaks, he said fervently.

Up close she could see that the man’s eyes glinted with mania, and when she felt his hand press against her thigh, her reaction was pure instinct—she knocked the hand away and pushed him back, compressing his windpipe, pressing him against the thick canvas of the transport so it bowed out behind him. Something fell from his hand and clattered to the floor behind her, metal ringing against metal.

The old man was gasping something.

"What?" she snapped.

For . . . you, he gasped.

Wary, she loosened her hold. Silent a moment before, the pain in her body screamed again, and she slid back onto her seat, every inch of her throbbing.

The man lurched forward, scuttling between the other prisoners, stopping at the feet of a hard-looking woman, and snatched something from the floor. He made his unsteady way back to Hannah and sat, pressing an object into her hand. For you, he breathed, his whisper insistent.

Hannah looked down. It was a—she searched for the word—a pocketknife. The blue enamel of the hilt was cracked and the metal was scabby with rust, but when she flipped it open, she sucked in a breath. The blade was the length of her palm and half its width. The steel was dull and sharp enough to split a hair down the center. Where did you get this?

"A leak," the man hissed.

Hannah folded the blade back into the hilt and held it out to the old man. Keep it. You might do more good with it than I will.

He pressed her hand closed around the knife. You must, he said, and for a moment his eyes looked almost sane.

Hannah hefted the weight of it in her hand. I’ll do what I can, she finally said.

"You must do more than you can, the man said urgently. Far more than you are capable of. This is the moment."

The truck lurched to a stop. The old man swung himself back to his bench, and all around her, the other prisoners woke up and shifted in their seats. Hannah slipped the knife into the pocket of her jeans just as the canvas flap was pulled aside.

Well, well, well, said a voice that made bile rise into her mouth.

She closed her throat quickly, so she wouldn’t throw up.

She took a deep breath and took notice of every inch of her body. Everything hurt. Her left eye throbbed, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten, and she had at least a few broken ribs. But in that moment, every inch of herself was hers alone.

She let out the breath and stood up, walking toward the man who held the canvas open.

He laughed. See this, boys? I told you she was hot for me. Look at her, running toward me.

It was always like this for Hannah. She would come to a problem that seemed impossible to solve. A chasm with no way across. It worked best if she didn’t know what she was going to do beforehand. She worked best if she could build the bridge as she went.

Now she walked toward him. Oliver Shaw. Her bridge.

That’s right, baby, hop on down here, he said, looking her up and down as she jumped from the truck.

Landing on the hardpacked dirt sent a shockwave of pain through her body, but she hadn’t flinched for four years. She wasn’t going to start now.

Voices rumbled around her as the Keeper guards recognized her.

Man, she looks like shit.

What’d they do to her?

That’s not her, dipshit.

Yeah, it is, look at her eyes.

She smells like she was dropped in the shitter. Your standards are taking a nosedive, Shaw.

What standards?

The laughter was a dim buzz in her ears. Her eyes were on Oliver.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It never had, not in the six years she’d known him.

You’ll have to excuse them. It’s their first time meeting a celebrity. Guys, meet Hannah Darling, leader of the Resistance. He stared at her for a long moment. Aren’t you going to say hello to your fans?

Hannah kept her eyes on Oliver. Sorry boys, I don’t do autographs.

Oliver’s laugh sounded like grating metal. He reached out a hand and traced a finger down her cheek. Lovingly. I love that you never change, Darling. Makes it so fun to pull that stick out of your ass myself.

Hannah closed her throat again, using every aching muscle in her body to keep herself from shuddering as he touched her.

She had known Oliver in school. He’d been a Keeper sympathizer even then, so she’d had little to do with him. He’d been with the Guard the first time she’d been arrested. He’d put her restraints on, tightening them so the steel bit into her flesh, and his hungry eyes on her in the back of the transport had been one of her most vivid memories of the experience.

She’d had reason to wonder before that, but she’d known it then—in the glittering way he’d stared at her—Oliver loved her. It was sick and obsessive and absolutely deadly, and now it had come to this.

Hannah met his eyes and nearly smiled. For the first time ever, she and Oliver Shaw were on the exact same page. Because Hannah had arrived at the site of her execution. For both herself and Oliver Shaw, it was now or never.

You’ve got to be shitting me, Shaw. They want her out there now, came a voice from over her shoulder.

Hannah felt her bridge sway under her feet. So much depended on Oliver. Her gamble was the depth of his obsession. Unless he really wanted her, wanted to hurt her more than he cared about his job—and possibly his life—this wasn’t going to work.

They’re waiting for us to bring her in. McSwain’s going to be here in a second, asking questions.

She watched Oliver hesitate, weighing out his options. It was an odd thing to hope for, but she held her breath.

Another prisoner from the transport, thinking they were supposed to be unloading, approached the canvas.

Oliver raised his gun and shot the man in the head. Hannah jumped back as the man toppled into the dust at her feet.

Oliver holstered his gun. Tell McSwain this guy started to transform and it took time to subdue him.

So pathetic. They’re going to have you by the nuts for this.

Oliver grabbed Hannah’s arm, holding as tightly as he could. Get the rest of that trash unloaded. I’ll be back in three minutes.

This was met with a chorus of whistles and jeers, and he marched her into the trees. The forest—once banished from the city—encroached everywhere now, and they only had to go ten feet in to be obscured from view. He slammed her against the rough bark of the tree and pressed himself against her. His smell—sweat mixed with a bathtub’s worth of black-market cologne—nearly overwhelmed her.

Hannah kept her hand at her side, hovering over the knife in her pocket, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.

Oliver was taller than her, and the body he shoved against her was solid as the oak behind her back. She had to wait for her moment.

His buzzed head nuzzled into her neck, and she actively fought off nausea.

I knew you wanted this, Darling. I knew it back in school. I could see it when you looked at me. I saw it when we first arrested you. The way you looked at me, in your handcuffs. I knew I just had to—have you—tied, he thrust his hips against her, up . . . Oliver’s breath had started to hitch, and he seemed to be having trouble stringing words together.

He flipped her around and pushed hard against her, pressing her face into the tree’s scabby bark.

Her hand twitched over her knife, but she didn’t move to grab it.

This wasn’t the moment.

In the distance she heard shouts as the Keeper guards unloaded the transport truck.

They didn’t have much time.

The thought must have occurred to Oliver too. Behind her, she heard the sound of a zipper, then the unmistakable sound of a belted gun holster clattering to the ground as he dropped his pants.

Turn ’round, he muttered, grabbing her by the shoulders and spinning her toward him. Lemme see your face, Darling.

She turned and, for a moment, met Oliver’s eyes. So light they were nearly colorless, they were glazed over now, his eyelids at half-mast, as though about to fall asleep. His eyes ranged over her face, but she had no idea what he saw. Though somewhere in her muddied brain, she knew he wasn’t looking at her, he was remembering. Remembering a girl who’d scorned him at school. The girl he’d helped arrest a year ago.

He ran his soft hands up her arms and pressed down on her shoulders until she knelt in front of him.

For no one’s benefit but her own, she gave a half shrug.

This was the moment.

She ran her left hand up Oliver’s pale thigh as misdirect while she retrieved the knife. His groan covered the small pop when she flipped open the blade, and without further ceremony, she drove the knife into his thigh and yanked up, severing the femoral artery.

She stood and stepped aside as blood geysered, spattering the tree. She wasn’t fast enough—she never seemed to be, these days—and it splashed on her jeans and dotted her filthy T-shirt.

Oliver’s eyes went wide with shock and he looked down, slowly. Wha’ happened? he gasped, pale as a sheet. Without waiting for an answer, he toppled over, into the underbrush.

His angle changed, the spray of blood aerosolizing across Hannah’s face as Oliver’s heart pumped another liter through his faulty plumbing.

Finally giving in, Hannah leaned over, heaving. There was nothing in her stomach to throw up, but she held the tree, spitting, tasting Oliver’s blood in her mouth.

She heard the jangle of the Keeper guards as they approached the edge of the trees, looking for them. She took a step toward Oliver’s inert form—toward his gun—but every instinct screamed at her to get away.

It physically pained her to move away, leaving his gun, but she sprinted deeper into the trees just as the Keeper guards drew near.

No longer anyone’s prisoner, Hannah stumbled deeper into the woods.

CHAPTER 2

JUST KEEP IT TOGETHER

Four days later, Hannah sat on a park bench as the sun began to set and forced herself to admit she was a little discouraged. She had ringed the outer border, but the lack of an exit point and unbearable hunger had driven her back toward the center of New City. She’d moved carefully, checking every Resistance rendezvous point in the city. She had done a loop of them, but no one had showed their face.

There were Keeper guards everywhere, and a new, inconveniently strict curfew. Anyone out after sundown had their papers thoroughly reviewed and then, as a parting gift, were beaten and sent to lockup. Hannah had nearly learned this the hard way when she’d found herself watching the patrolling guards from the inside of an abandoned car.

She’d been picking up everything she saw, not knowing what would be useful, and had been making good use of an old black sweatshirt. She doubted she looked much like herself under any circumstances, but she was taking no chances.

Other than the chance she took killing Oliver and fleeing from the site of her scheduled execution. Other than that, she was taking no chances.

She was looking everywhere for signs of the Resistance—posters, pamphlets, the pictographs they had made up to communicate through the city—but she saw nothing. And the absence of communication made her feel even worse.

She leaned back on the bench, pulling the hood lower over her face as a group of young women passed her. Laughing, of all things.

She looked at the sky, where an aura of fire was lighting the horizon. She remembered laughing like that with Charlie and Sharra when they’d made up the pictograms. They had been her idea, based on hobo symbols from the twentieth century. They’d designed them to be subtle, almost as though they could be accidental. A spray-painted curve, like a smile, meant there were Resistance sympathizers within. A triangle, slashed through, meant to stay away.

Why don’t we just do a frown if we want to indicate Keeper sympathizers? Charlie had asked too loudly, like he always got after a beer or two.

What if someone approaches it from the wrong angle? Hannah had said.

Charlie had looked at her for a moment, his brown eyes warm and alive, and then thrown back his head and laughed.

Hannah swallowed, thinking of Charlie. Of Sharra. Of beer.

The public drinking fountains had been turned off years ago, just after the second outbreak, but she’d managed to get a long drink from a rain barrel behind a shop a few days ago. She’d been eating scraps, but—even doing more than she could—she knew she only had a few more days. The hunger and pain were making her sloppy. Her brain had grown undependable, and the fatigue was making it worse.

She sighed and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, the sunset was over—long over, from the look of the dark sky.

She sighed again. She’d thought she had a couple more days left in her before she made this kind of mistake.

She got up, intent on heading deeper into the park. It was growing darker by the minute, and if she made it past the reflected light of the street, she might be able to pass the night. The night guard was young and stayed away from shadows, so if she could make it to the darkness of the trees, she could count on them being too scared to patrol too near.

Curfew was an hour ago, kid, a voice attached to a pair of boots said, stepping into her path.

Hannah didn’t look up. Heading home now, she said quietly.

Need to see your papers. You know the drill, the voice said, sounding bored.

Hannah’s mind ran the scenarios. None of them looked promising.

The boots shifted and the voice sounded like it was stifling a yawn. Papers, dumbass. I don’t have all day.

Left ’em at home, Hannah said, letting her voice rumble in its lowest register, still not looking up.

That figures, the voice said, irritated. Fletcher, get over here, would you?

Hannah’s blood ran ice cold.

She gave her head an imperceptible shake. It wasn’t an uncommon name. It had to be someone else.

From somewhere behind her she heard a slow, booted tread approaching.

Her hands clenched inside her pockets.

There was no way.

Fletch, I can’t deal with any more of this. When are they going to lift this shitty curfew?

You got somewhere else you gotta be, Vic? the other voice said.

Beads of sweat broke out on Hannah’s head. She had never known another human whose smirk she could hear.

Anthony Fletcher stood in front of her.

Papers, dipshit, and don’t be all day.

Said he doesn’t have ’em, the bored guard said.

Well, that’s a problem, Fletcher said. He didn’t sound overtly threatening, but to Hannah’s ears, every word spoken in that voice was laced with menace. Where are they?

Keeping her eyes on his boots, Hannah gave him a tiny, one-shoulder shrug.

No one said anything for a long moment.

Fletch? the guard named Vic asked, after a moment. Are you going to take care of it or what?

Where’d you say your papers were? Fletcher asked again.

His voice sounded calm, but Hannah thought she heard an edge.

Home, she said, practically swallowing the word.

Are we going to be wrapping up at any point in the near future? I’m too senior to pull a night shift, Vic asked, his voice teetering on the edge of a whine.

Yeah, get out of here, Fletcher said evenly. I’ll take care of this.

Vic’s boots turned, then paused. I mean, I can do it, I guess. I know you’re not here for this stupid shit. He heaved a sigh. I’ll take him in.

Vic grabbed Hannah roughly by the arm, and she had to grind her teeth together to keep from crying out with pain as he yanked her toward the street.

Fletcher caught up with them easily. He grabbed her elbow but didn’t pull. I’ll take it. Get out of here. If Lewis catches you hanging around, he’s going to make you do a night shift.

He can’t make me pull a double, Vic said, whining in earnest now.

So get out of here, Fletcher said again. It’s been a while since I got to process anyone.

Vic chuckled. Yeah. I’ve seen how you process these jokers. Make sure you leave enough to be cuffed.

Still chuckling, Vic walked away, leaving Hannah alone with Anthony Fletcher.

He gave her a little push to start her walking down the dark street, now empty but for the two of them.

Her free hand brushed the knife, still in the pocket of her jeans. As soon as they passed an alleyway, she’d make her move. The odds weren’t good, but anything was better than letting Anthony Fletcher lead her back to the Keepers.

Hannah had spent the last four days—the last four years—hunted by fear, but this indignity felt particularly sharp.

Anthony Fletcher had been a thorn in her side her whole life. Their parents had been acquaintances—tenuous friends at the best of times—but their politics had driven them further and further apart until they’d stopped seeing each other completely. In an attempt at normalcy, the loose community in what used to be called Brooklyn kept a school running—Poly Prep, formerly an exclusive private academy. Hannah hadn’t even recognized Anthony as the little boy she’d used to climb trees with. But he’d recognized her. She could still remember the way her name had sounded ringing through the corridor just before the start of orientation. She’d turned around and