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“It’s alright, baby,” he said, but there was a tremor in his voice. “Fuck, it’s alright. I’m here now.”

That only made me cry more, terrified that he would disappear the way he did in my dreams. But in dreams, he was always translucent, ephemeral, a wisp of a memory. Now, he was a solid, flesh-and-blood man, and I could feel his heart beating against my cheek, his arms enveloping me. For the first time since I was taken, I felt safe.

“I missed you so much,” I said, nearly in a whisper.

He sighed heavily, his body rigid with tension.

“It’s been hell without you, sweetheart,” he replied in a hushed tone, and I felt the anguish in his words deep in my bones. I buried myself deeper in his embrace, wanting to soak up every bit of his warmth, of his presence.

After a moment, John drew back, holding me at arm’s length.

“You’re hurt,” he said, his voice rich with concern, and his gaze tracked downward. My feet were shredded and bloody, and his lips parted in distress.

“And I’m deaf in my left ear,” I said with a shaky, humourless laugh. “The bomb must’ve blown out my eardrum.”

“Shit,” he muttered, casting around us. “Come here.”

He lifted me up onto the study table and knelt in front of me. As he took my foot in his hands, I leaned into his touch, unable to resist, but now that the initial shock of seeing him was dissipating, questions burned at my lips.

“What are you doing here?” I managed to get out, and panic crept into my voice again. If anyone saw him, if anyone knew that a Wastelander had breached the Walls—

John raised an eyebrow as he examined my foot. “I’m here for you. Obviously.”

He said it as though the question itself was insulting.

“Did you doubt that I would come?” he asked as he looked back at me, and his question held pain inside it, like he didn’t understand how I could ever think such a thing.

My bottom lip trembled. “I thought you might be…when they took me, they told me that…”

Understanding softened his features, and he caressed my cheek, wiping away tears with his thumb—like he’d done so many times before when comforting me.

“Takes more than a few assholes with guns to kill me,” John said with a touch of humour. His expression darkened. “Especially when they kidnap my wife.”

“The cuts are deep,” John said a second later, and underneath his calm demeanour was ice-cold fury. “We’ll have to wrap them until we get back to camp.”

He tore a strip off the bottom of my very ruined white dress and bound my foot tightly with it, staunching the flow of blood.

“But…how did you get here?” I asked, bewildered, before my eyes fell to the gas mask on the floor, where he’d dropped it. “You’re with the White Rose militia?”

John nodded, looking weary. “I made a deal with them. It was the only way I could get in. They have a tunnel in and out of here.”

A sense of foreboding clouded my joy at seeing him again. A deal. What had this cost him? And if he made a deal with them, why did they attack me?

I asked him just that, and he made a disgruntled noise. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. Then again, the Order wasn’t supposed to happen, either. I don’t know why those assholes chased you. Everyone was ordered not to hurt you.”

“Whose orders?” I demanded.

“Our commander’s.”

I pressed my lips together. I was certain that he was being deliberately tight-lipped, and it didn’t make me feel any better about this bargain he’d apparently struck.

“What sort of deal did you make?” I asked, frowning.

He huffed impatiently, but there was a hint of amusement there, too, as he tore another strip off my dress. “You’ve perfected your ‘disapproving wife’ face while you’ve been away.”

In a different moment, I would’ve laughed. Instead, my unease deepened.

“Tell me,” I insisted.