Now that I stood outside the door, I realized—his head had been turned toward Lina the entire time.
The moment we reached the safety base, Oliver insisted that no survivor should be left behind. The rescue team had to go back.
They didn’t refuse. They pushed through their exhaustion for a second trip. But the virus spread too fast. By the time they arrived, Lina had already been devoured.
Oliver hadn’t shown much of a reaction.
“Well,” he sighed, as if hearing about some nameless casualty, “it couldn’t be helped. May she rest in peace.”
Lina was my father’s illegitimate daughter—my half-sister. I never liked her, but I wasn’t heartless enough to feel nothing about her death.
While I was still struggling with grief, Oliver had already calmly gathered Lina’s keepsake—a necklace.
Nowhere was safe in the apocalypse. At any moment, we could be forced into another desperate escape.
Oliver told me he couldn’t bear to let Lina’s keepsake be lost. Asked if I minded him keeping it.
Of course, I didn’t mind. I even considered postponing our wedding out of respect for the tragedy.
Marriages in the apocalypse were more binding than ever—a true merging of resources, a declaration that two people were a single, inseparable unit.
I still remembered his response.
“Don’t delay it, Zayla. If anything, I wish I could marry you right now. Postponing our happiness over an unimportant outsider would be too cruel.”
I had been deeply moved.
I hadn’t realized that beneath Oliver’s tender mask lurked an ocean of hatred.
That he had been so desperate to marry me—not out of love, but to torment me without restraint.
Because of him, I became the biggest joke of the survivor base.
Whenever someone lost hope, they’d crack a joke: “At least we’re better off than Zayla.”
And why did I deserve such punishment? Did I force Oliver to make that choice?
No. He was the one who hadn’t saved Lina.
Her death had nothing to do with me. I was just another desperate survivor trying to get on that truck, no different from anyone else.
I was simply unlucky—standing in front of Lina that day, catching Oliver’s attention.
Well, this time, I personally handed the spot to Lina.
He better be grateful.
And he better not regret it.
