Chapter One
Ashley’s heart raced as she ran as fast as her feet could carry her. She didn’t know how much longer the group of men would be out, but she was determined to get away from them before they could rape her. No one was taking her against her will. She was thankful that they’d brought her to some kind of house where she’d been able to find the necessary ingredients to knock them out.
She pressed her body against the brick wall of an alleyway and took a second to catch her breath.
Her head hurt from being hit, and she felt sick to her stomach from being starved. Considering the population was at an all time low, she would have thought men would cherish the few females that were still alive. It seemed that was a joke.
Since a deadly virus had struck the world, people who had been weak or too young to make it had died. All of the scientists that had cooked it up, and the leaders who had unleashed it, were dead. In the few months since it had been released, chaos and war had broken out. Groups of men fought for land and survival. The women that hadn’t been killed had been forced to be tagged based on their fertility status.
Once the virus had been unleashed, Ashley recalled all the women in her apartment block being rounded up. They had to go to a testing facility, and it was there that she received the tattoo on her wrist. It was a band etched into the skin by ink, which told the world who was fertile and who was not.
Ashley, for all of her luck, was fertile.
Yay.
Not.
In the beginning of being announced fertile, she’d been safe. The women who hadn’t been so lucky had been forced back out into the world where no one gave a fuck. For her, she’d spent the first month in complete bliss and harmony. She’d been told she would be transported to a safe location where she would be put to good use, to aid humankind.
She knew what good use meant—bred. That was it.
She’d become nothing more than a vessel for a man’s pleasure. At least, that’s what they intended.
It never happened.
Before she even got a chance to be transported, the women had been taken hostage, and while the promise of death surrounded her, she made a run for it.
Rushing out onto the streets hadn’t been her brightest idea, but at least she’d been able to finally be free. Only, it hadn’t worked according to plan, either.
Men had seen her, seen the tag, and then she’d had to run for her life. She’d been doing okay until the latest group of men had hit her, knocking her unconscious and taking her to wherever the hell she was when she woke up.
She didn’t recognize anything, and she kept trying not to freak out.
Getting away from them had been her lucky break. After the group of men had taken her, they’d told her they were all going to fuck her, to fill her womb so full of cum so that she would breed them more women to take as their own.
It had sickened her to the core.
Before the fucking could start though, they had demanded she feed them. So, using the ingredients around her, she’d fed them, but she had put in a few other ingredients as well. Especially the sleeping pills she’d found in the cupboard. She didn’t know if crumbling them into their food would work, but she had used every single one in the hopes of getting away.
The moment they’d fallen asleep, she took off.
She couldn’t stop. If she stopped, she’d be taken again. That prospect was not acceptable to her.
Staring down at the ink around her wrist, she gritted her teeth. At the time, she hadn’t thought much about the fertility tattoo they’d forced her to wear. Now though, it had pissed her off. She felt like cattle. It amazed her how humankind could turn so savage in such a short frame of time.
Before all media outlets had gone down, a broadcast into what the bands signified had gone out to the world. Any woman found with the fertile band had to be taken to the government immediately.
Of course, that hadn’t happened. When she saw the broadcast, she should have known something had fucked up.
Why would women who had the band be out in the world?
They had the sense to run before it was too late.
Pushing down the sleeve of her jacket, she shook her head, hating herself for her own weakness. This was not what she wanted to do, but now her life was survival.
Stepping away from the wall, she began to follow a new path, no real destination in mind.
She knew it wasn’t safe anywhere, so she was on alert.