Traitor Darling

By Valerie Best

To save the world, they'll need to save each other first.

Even though working with the boy that broke her heart is the last thing Hannah wants, she needs Anthony's help to protect the people from a generation of leaders who've given up on saving what's left of the world.
The world believes Hannah Darling is dead. And still reeling from torture and taking a bullet for the boy who betrayed her, the Hannah that survived isn't quite the same. With the remains of New York still under the grip of the fascist Keepers, vaccines to distribute, people to evacuate, and a new crisis on the horizon, her fellow resistance members are beginning to wonder: Can Hannah still resist the Keepers?
Anthony, under house arrest and wracked with guilt over leaving Hannah behind, is doing penance for his betrayal by distributing stolen vaccines to the vulnerable. As his powerful father's health declines, Anthony is drawn into the sinister web of the Keeper hierarchy who plan to abandon the city to restart humanity with only the elite. And they want him to help.But an even bigger threat is facing the remnants of New York City: a new and resistant wave of the deadly plague that destroyed their world and raised the Strangers is coming.
Full of defiance, breathless action, and romance, TRAITOR DARLING is the epic conclusion of the story that began with REBEL DARLING.

• Language: English
• Publisher: 8th Note Press
• Release date: Feb 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9781961795129

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

MONSTERS

"I think he’s doing okay today."

Fletcher looked up. Caroline was standing in front of him, framed by the golden light of the sun setting through the window behind her. The young nurse was nearly as tall as he was, but willowy and slight. He’d noticed she hardly made any sound as she moved around the large house.

What? he finally asked.

A look of concern flashed across her eyes. They were blue, and always looked timid. Your dad. I think he’s doing okay today. He seemed more aware.

Fletcher nodded. Good, he said, though the words were hollow. He looked back out the window.

Caroline turned, her gaze following his onto the quiet street. Do you know what day it is?

Fletcher shook his head. Tuesday? he hazarded.

She looked over at him with an indulgent smile, then, as her eyes flickered down to the electronic tracker around his ankle, visible beneath his jeans, the smile disappeared. She looked back out the window. It’s Thursday, actually. It’s October thirty-first.

Oh. Fletcher was unmoved by this information.

She looked over, smiling again. Don’t you remember?

Remember what?

October thirty-first is Halloween.

Halloween. The images came back, blurry. He was a kid. A little kid, clinging to his mother’s hand. Leaves scuttled on the ground. Kids raced through the streets, screaming with laughter. He held on to a paper sack heavy with apples and chocolate bars. His mother had laughed when he’d dumped it all out on his bed. Only one, she’d said, smiling. He’d eaten one and snuck more from the kitchen drawer where she’d hidden the rest of the bag. He thought he’d been sly, but looking back, he realized she must have known.

No one trick-or-treating now, Fletcher said, looking out on the empty street. The leaves still scuttled, drifting high against the buildings, but no one walked among them.

No, Caroline said quietly.

What did it mean?

She looked over, politely curious. What?

Halloween. What did it mean? Why did people celebrate it? Fletcher asked, hearing the irritation that always edged his voice these days.

Caroline seemed not to notice. She shrugged. That was before my time. I’ve only read a little about it.

And? he asked shortly.

She paused before she answered. People would dress up as monsters and ghosts so the evil spirits would get confused and let them pass.

Fletcher looked at her for a moment, then gave a bark of laughter. To blend in with the dead?

Caroline gave a small shrug. And maybe to prove the monsters weren’t so scary after all.

He turned back to the window. Well, we can see how well that’s worked out.

Neither of them spoke. After a long moment Caroline looked down at her watch. It was a thin golden bracelet around her delicate wrist.

You’re leaving then? he asked, clearing his throat.

Caroline hesitated for a moment, as though she wanted to say something, then nodded. It’s that time. He’s in bed already. He should stay asleep all night.

Okay. Thanks. Fletcher turned. I’ll walk you to the door.

He led her through the study to the main entryway. When Fletcher was growing up in this house, a brownstone in what used to be called Brooklyn Heights, they had always used the ground floor entrance—the garden entrance, his mother had called it. But sometime after he’d left home, his father had started using the grander entrance with its glass-paneled oak doors. He opened one for Caroline as she gathered her bag and coat.

She stopped just in front of him. Have a good night, Anthony. She gave him a small smile. Happy Halloween.

He stared at her smile for a moment and she paused, waiting for him to respond. But when he didn’t, she ducked her head and headed out the door. He watched as she went down the steps of the brownstone to the empty sidewalk. She hesitated a moment, and—with a backward glance at him—headed down the block.

Fletcher watched her until she disappeared around the corner, then he turned his eyes up to the sky, which was now growing dark. He walked downstairs to the quiet kitchen where he made himself a sandwich and a cup of tea. The water still ran and the solar-powered generators made the refrigerator light turn on. Its pre-plague normalcy was jarring, and Fletcher still wasn’t used to it, even after three months. In his father’s house he could almost forget that the population was decimated, almost forget that the Keepers ran what was left of the government, and almost forget that he was on house arrest. He tried to remember the sound of the doorbell. Tried to imagine opening the door and finding children dressed in costumes, their faces rosy from the cold.

But there were no trick-or-treaters, and he couldn’t forget the rest—refrigerator light or not. He braced his hands against the cold granite of the kitchen counter and breathed hard through his nose. The sandwich sat heavy in his belly, but he knew later on he’d be grateful he’d eaten.

He walked up the back stairs to the second floor. His father was tucked into bed, and just as Caroline had said, asleep. Fletcher looked at him as the very last light of the day came through the windows. He had a new bruise on his arm, his papery skin already turning purple. He must have bumped into a wall as Caroline trundled him through the house. The man was like a peach these days.

But Fletcher wasn’t there to check on him. He wouldn’t have cared if the old man died in his sleep, but for one thing. Fletcher sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over, disengaging the tracker from his own ankle and, flipping up the blankets at the end of the bed, clipped it on his father’s ankle.

The Keeper captain who’d placed it on his ankle had been Fletcher’s own ranking officer before Fletcher had decided to leave New City without authorization. The captain had done the job with few words and a sour look on his face, apparently forgetting that Fletcher had helped design the device.

At the time, he’d figured it was only a matter of time before someone remembered he had been on the team that had designed the tracker, but two months later, no one had remembered. That was the benefit of living in a martial state in which no one bothered to keep any records. In the kind of power structure where those with institutional knowledge sometimes just disappeared, you ended up getting away with things.

Fletcher looked at the tracker, now blinking benignly on his father’s pale, wasted ankle. He had only been a teenager when he’d helped with the design. He’d gotten pulled into the project, a special security initiative, just after he’d become a Keeper, likely because of his father. Back then he hadn’t thought of what purpose the device would end up serving, he just liked the science of it. There were precious few resources back then, even for someone like him, and it had felt special to have access to the tech.

The design flaws embarrassed him now, but—as he adjusted the tracker on his father’s ankle—he had to admit those flaws had their benefits. The tracking program was rudimentary—the location was messaged back to Keeper Headquarters through a radio frequency and the service occasionally kicked off. It didn’t raise a red flag if it didn’t happen at the same time every day and if it kicked right back on. The device was sensitive to heat and motion, so as long as Anton Fletcher stayed alive until morning, Fletcher was free until he woke up.

Fletcher flipped the blankets back over his father and headed upstairs to his room. He tugged on a black knit cap and pulled his stocked backpack out from under the bed.

Now it was just a matter of avoiding the attention of nosy neighbors and Keeper patrols. That was also not particularly hard. He just avoided the front doors and slipped out the back. Quiet as a cat on his black-market rubber-soled sneakers—a gift from his father upon his return—he made no noise as he scaled the old wooden fence into the neighboring yard. The yard used to belong to Miranda Cook, a woman a little older than his own mother. She’d been an ER doctor who’d lived through the first outbreak and died in the second, along with her two kids, one of them still a baby.

Fletcher broke quietly through her overgrown garden, hopped over her fence to the street, turned in the direction of the wall, and disappeared into the night.

CHAPTER 2

SUSPICIONS

The first time he’d snuck out he’d been terrified. Anton Fletcher’s son or not, if he was caught violating his house arrest, he’d have been thrown in prison. Especially now.

And prison would have been the best-case scenario.

So he’d taken his time that first night. He’d waited until almost midnight before he’d left the house and moved under the cover of a moonless sky. He’d moved through the city silently, watchfully, until he’d hit the wall. He’d kept his eyes open, his whole body tensed, waiting to see the Keeper patrols. But he never saw them. Not once that first night, and infrequently in the nights that followed. He had spent so many years pacing New City on street patrol with the Keeper Guards, checking papers and rousing drunks, and now there didn’t seem to be any guards out anywhere.

He wanted to ask someone about it—find out why the Keepers were no longer actively trying to control their citizens—but it wasn’t a natural question for someone who had been on house arrest since the moment they’d arrived back in town, so he kept his suspicions to himself.

Besides, he had other things to think about.

There was an easy exit point in the wall near his father’s house, and he headed straight there. It had taken a week to work out and verify the pattern, but the guard that worked nights fell asleep. Every night, just after eleven. Like clockwork. So Fletcher just waited until his head dropped back and then strolled through the metal gateway. There was a closed-circuit camera with an ominously blinking light trained on the pathway, but he ignored it. The feed displayed only on the staticky screen in front of the sleeping guard and wasn’t recorded anywhere else, so as long as the guard stayed asleep, he was in the clear.

He walked a mile into the woods. The moon was out tonight, and he could see the well-worn path.

Anthony? a low voice called out from the darkness.

Yeah, it’s me, Fletcher said.

Cleo Lila stepped out from the shadow of a tree. You have the doses?

Fletcher nodded. I’ve got fifteen.

"Fifteen?" Cleo asked.

It was all I was able to get.

Cleo’s lips pressed into a thin line. I’ve got a hundred people lined up for it.

Fletcher adjusted his backpack on his shoulders. It was a cool night, but humid and close, and he was sweaty from the walk. It’s all I could get, he repeated, the irritation back in his voice.

Cleo regarded him for a moment, then gave him a nod and turned on her heel. He followed her another half mile to where the Lilas’ wagon stood. Like Cleo had said, there were about a hundred people standing, clumped together in a vague suggestion of a line.

Ben Martin’s here too, Cleo said, nodding over at a tall young man with sandy brown hair near the back of the group.

Ben was an organizer, like Hannah, but from across the river, from the place they had once called New Jersey. There was a smaller population there, and virtually no Keeper presence, so Ben lacked Hannah’s killer instincts, but he was good with people. He had appeared sometime at the end of the summer and connected with the Lilas.

Fletcher watched as Ben spoke quietly to the people gathered, guiding them into a more ordered line, smiling often.

He hated the guy.

Fletcher looked down the long line of people who were now all looking up at him with interest, their faces shadowy in the light of the fires from the Lila camp. With a sigh, he heaved his pack off his back and onto the gate of the wagon. He pulled out the bottle of vodka he’d pinched from his father’s study, the small bag of cotton squares, and—clinking musically—the fifteen doses of the vaccine. I don’t have enough for everyone, he announced, opening the slim cases containing the shots, so I’m only doing children tonight. The first fifteen. He looked up at Ben Martin. Just kids.

Ben nodded. Okay, he said, and turned to speak to the people gathered.

Fletcher turned his back, letting Ben do the dirty work as the people in line grumbled and shifted and worked out who was getting the vaccine.

We need it, too! someone yelled. It’s not just the fucking kids who are getting sick!

Fletcher ignored the voice. He looked at Cleo, who was standing near him, now holding one of her children. How’s he doing? he asked, tilting his chin toward the little boy in Cleo’s arms.

Better. Thanks, Cleo said, shifting the small boy’s weight in her arms. He’s stopped throwing up.

Where was the water? Fletcher asked, wetting the cotton patches with the vodka.

Cleo gestured vaguely east. Down a ways. We all drank it. He was just too far downstream. She shook her head. Dirty water. I’m sure that was it.

Fletcher stared at the little boy for a moment. Does he still have the fever?

It comes and goes, she said, pressing her cheek to his, like she was checking his temperature.

You’re still giving him the antibiotics?

Yeah.

You have to finish it. If you don’t give him the full course, it’s not going to do him any good.

The whole thing, Anthony. I told you we would when you gave it to me.

And the tea? With goldenseal? Fletcher readied the first dose.

Cleo nodded. She looked at him for a moment, her eyes appraising. We’ve all been wondering where you learned about goldenseal?

It came to me in a dream, Fletcher said waspishly. Cleo was fine. She wasn’t a friend—he didn’t have any of those—but she was reliable and useful and probably could be trusted. But he didn’t feel like telling her that he spent his days poring over any text he could find with even a passing reference to medicine or public health or disease management. He glanced over as the adults who’d come without kids—looking mutinous—started moving out of line. They were the survivors who lived outside the walls of New City. Most of them lived in small groups, but they’d somehow heard that he was around, and had traveled who the hell knew how far to try to get the vaccine. 

He looked away, shaking his head in disgust. It was all so useless. He turned to the first child