“If this is the last moment we get, I want to make the most of it,” I say. One final memory of the man and the life that will never be mine.

Will nods against me, his hand sliding to the back of my head. He presses his lips to mine, and our mouths move urgently. I’m memorizing the taste of him even as I’m saying goodbye.

When his lips finally leave mine, they move to my ear. “You have to kill him, Serenity.”

My body goes rigid against him. “You work for the king; you can’t say things like that anymore,” I whisper.

“The Resistance—those people who saved you—they will spread to the western hemisphere. Once they do, I’m planning on joining,” he says.

“And what do you hope to accomplish?” I ask. The war is over; we lost. The best any of us can do now is make the situation as bearable as possible. I’m not sure that killing the king would actually make the world better, or if it would just open the position to all the other power-hungry people out there.

“No one man should have that much power,” Will says.

Silently, I agree with him, but it doesn’t change the fact that the king might be the world’s best chance at getting back on its feet. More fighting will only prolong our suffering.

“And what happens once he’s dead, huh?” I ask. “They’ll kill me too.”

Will shakes his head. “No, they won’t. We have the footage of your arrival still, remember?”

My skin prickles. I don’t know whether this discussion fills me with fear or excitement, but I do feel my mortality in that moment. I’m certain I’ll die before my time—not that I’d ever believed otherwise.

I back away from him and grab the handle of the door. “I’ll think about what you’ve said.”

“Do.”

“Bye Will.”

He tips his head. “Goodbye my future queen.”

As soon as the aircraft leaves the ground, the king’s men relax. Not completely, but they’re not encircling me the same way they had been when they picked me up in the bunker’s garage.

One of them has my gun; he took it off of me when they patted me down for weapons. I keep my eye on him. I will kill for that gun. It’s the last piece of my father I have.

I glance out my window and watch my homeland get smaller and smaller. This high in the sky, the land looks beautiful. You wouldn’t know that the earth is poisoned with radiation, and its people are desperate, scavenging things.

I don’t know when I’ll be back here, if ever. It feels like a final goodbye. There’s nothing much that I’m leaving—a few final friends, my past, my old way of life.