They say that you don't truly appreciate what you have until it's gone, and I never felt that so deeply until the first day I ventured out into the city after the Final Wave, when all the humans had either been slaughtered, taken or had crawled into whatever hiding place they could find.

To us New Worlders, the silence of London had been deafening.

None of us realised how loud silence could be until we took those first tentative steps out into the open.

Footsteps. Cars. The rush of air and roar of engine as a bus swept by, too close to the kerb. Voices. The sound of a tube train hurtling through a tunnel. Doors slamming. The clink of glasses held aloft in celebration. Laughter. When all that was gone and there was nothing left but silence, the thunderous quiet of the city boomed in our ears. I'd seen people cry at the burden of it all. I'd seen people brought to their knees, cradling their head in their hands, unable to process how the Greys had even taken sound from us.

Not only had they left London an empty shell of skeletal buildings and corpses, but they had taken its lifeforce, its buzz, the undeniably tenacious bubble of noise in which it existed.

As the team and I crept through the silent streets of London to Lancaster House, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the Greys eventually caught us all. Would they leave behind a ghost planet so they could conquer another broken world? Or make this world their own, until all traces of humanity were gone, and it was as if we had never existed and were nothing but a whisper lingering in the far reaches of space?

Standing alongside Jace, I'd never felt so much like a whisper in his world as I did then.

If it wasn't for the fact I could feel the tension balled around him like a fist, I would have thought one slight breeze might have blown me away, just like the ash which had settled on London's streets after the bombs had fallen and reduced flesh and stone to dust.

I hated this. I hated this mission, I hated what we were about to do, but most of all, I hated the distance that had stretched our friendship to the limits, and I hated that I had done this.

My secrets had done this.

Unease crept along my collarbone as I thought of that secret being out here somewhere. Watching me. Waiting. But, for what?

Looking up, I searched the windows of the surrounding buildings, squinting where the sun's glare hit any glass that had somehow remained unshattered. Could he be hiding there now? Watching us as we walked willingly into what could be nothing but a hornet's nest and not the bounty of treasure that Taj believed it was?

Most of the journey had been spent navigating the underground tunnels all the way to Green Park, one of the few tube stations mostly untouched by the war, but even the arduous trek through the dark, shifting shadows of the tunnels couldn't rival the dread I was feeling up here on the surface. I felt exposed and vulnerable, and it wasn't just the thought of being within the outer limits of the Black Zone that was bothering me, but the thought of that creature out here watching me through Tom's eyes.

The fallout with Jace had told me one thing: whatever Tom's murderer wanted with me; next time, I was going to be ready. I wasn't going to let my secrets destroy whatever I had left to hold on to.

Tightening my grasp on my SA80, my thumb rubbed the back of the pistol grip as I eyed the empty square of Cleveland Row. Across from our position on the corner of the narrow street, a building stood within a scaffolding cage, construction fences still in place around it, the warning signs now a useless endeavour, seeing as there was no one left to wander foolishly inside. At the site entrance, a partially skeletonised body still shrouded by a high-vis jacket lay face down, its arms outstretched, its skull picked clean by whatever carrion had taken the opportunity of an easy meal. Why on Earth that person had been there when the bombs had started to fall over the city, I couldn't possibly fathom, but there had been plenty of people like that. The ones in denial. The ones who'd thought it would all just blow over. The ones who'd carried on regardless.

Bloody idiots, all of them.

I blinked and looked away. I'd seen worse. We all had.

The Stable Yard entrance of Lancaster House was little more than a stone's throw away, just past where the security sentry box stood unmanned. Jace looked over to where Taj and Lenny were waiting, having made it to the red brick Tudor palace of St James's and he drew back for a moment, pressing his shoulder into the wall. His brow crumpled with worry-lines, aging him for a moment in a way I rarely saw.

'Ready?' he whispered, barely even shooting me a glance. 'Looks like we're on the move.'

Taj and Lenny edged away from their spot, keeping close to the wall as they crept along the side of the palace, and darted towards the empty sentry box. Jace and I stayed where we were, covering them as they moved, keeping our eyes trained on the many windows and doorways and checking for any signs of movement within.

Within seconds, Gav and Abby, who had been hiding behind the low stone balustrade of an alabaster brick building on the corner of Little St James's Street and Cleveland Row, slipped easily and soundlessly over the barrier and moved quickly across the square to join Taj and Len.

Without a word or gesture – because even now, Jace and I seemed to instinctively move as one, without much need for acknowledgment or instruction – we rounded the corner, walking carefully backwards, our eyes still scanning the square and adjacent buildings, until we reached the meeting point behind the security station.

Crouched low next to the others, concealed in between the box and an alcove in the wall, we waited it out for a few seconds, surveying the immediate area. The scent of sweat and tension hung heavy in the air. The plan was for Jace and I to go in, clear the immediate lobby and then Taj, Lenny, Gav and Abby would take the empty backpacks we all wore down to the cellar, fill them with whatever they could scavenge, while we stood watch in the Grand Hall until they were done. Then, we'd get out as quick as we could. No fuss. No delay. A quick smash and grab and then it was back into the tunnels, like the vermin we had become.

That was Plan A.

Plan B - should everything turn to shit while we were in there - was to all just try and make it back alive. Not much of a contingency plan admittedly, but it was all we had now. Get back to the station. Get underground as quickly as you could. Hide.

Try not to die if you could help it.

Beyond the courtyard, Lancaster House sat silent, an air of foreboding surrounding the mansion that, in better times, had been a work of art in its own right.

It had always been one the most beautiful town houses belonging to the state, with its red courtyard to the front and rolling green landscaped gardens to the rear. I'd never been fortunate enough to go inside before but had long admired the images I'd seen of the interior, with its grand sweeping staircase and its sumptuous rococo revival décor, not to mention the wealth of artwork that lined the walls of every single room. For an art buff like me, Lancaster House was Heaven and yet, looking at it now, even with the sun warming the honey-coloured brick, it looked more like a doorway straight into Hell and not one I relished the thought of entering anymore.

The entry barrier had been all but obliterated and was now nothing but a stump of severed pole. The crumpled metal stop-sign lay discarded on the ground, the one word almost serving as a warning not to go any further. I stared at it for a few seconds, wishing that everyone would echo what I was feeling and turn back before this whole mission went belly-up.

Of course, no one did. No one was going to turn back now, even if they secretly wanted to.

Gav -- who always embraced every one of Taj's plans with an enthusiasm that verged on fanaticism - looked troubled, his dark brow creased and his eyes devoid of their usual sparkle and grit. Even Abby, who could adapt to almost any situation and any hardship like no one I had ever known, looked uncomfortable and uneasy, her face steeped in a shadow that unnerved me.

Venturing inside the Black Zone had everyone on tenterhooks, almost as if we had wandered into some kind of weird dimension, where whatever dark power it now held was leeching the strength and courage from our very souls. Feeding on us. Draining us. 

On the other side of the Stable Yard, a burnt-out Audi convertible was embedded into the iron railings, a dark indistinguishable mass welded to the driver's seat. Fierce tyre tracks cut a path across the courtyard, like scald marks on stone skin. Motioning with his hand, Taj gestured for us to move and we did, one by one, crossing the courtyard, towards the remains of the car – where I kept my gaze firmly averted from whatever remained forever fused to the driver's seat. From there, we moved quickly over to the building, creeping low along the front of the balustrade until we had all reached the shelter of the portico. A weighty silence dogged our every step, growing heavier by the second and making my heart beat harder under the burden.

The doors to the house were wide open, hardly a welcoming sign considering the decomposed body curled up in the corner against the wall. A dark pool of old blood and whatever else had leaked out from the corpse stained the ground underneath. Ignoring it, Jace stepped towards the doorway, so that he could quickly scan the entrance hall, before beckoning me to follow. With my SA80 ready, I trailed Jace into the mouth of Lancaster House, my own opening in awe as I nudged the fallen scarlet curtain aside that framed the Corinthian columns and stepped into the Grand Hall.

I always thought it strange that despite the death and chaos of the New World, I never failed to be stunned by the beauty of places like this. Even the National Gallery, with all its many works of art still in place, couldn't have held a candle to the sheer opulent wonder of the interior of this building. Spinning a slow three-hundred-and-sixty, I scanned the entire Hall, from the lower floor, up the wide sweeping staircase, to the balcony level, my eyes wide, and my heart pumping even harder now, not with fear, but with a joy that instantly made me feel guilty.

I shouldn't have been in love with every inch of this place. The smooth curves of the tall candelabras. The marbled walls. The exquisite touch of Versailles evident in the decor. The huge 19th century Giuseppe Gallo Lorenzi paintings. I shouldn't have been marvelling it at all, because the beauty of it made my soul ache for Tom. For him to be standing at my side, instead of Jace, because Tom would have understood. He'd have stood patiently, allowing me my pleasures as I coveted everything.

I definitely shouldn't have been enjoying this with the horrors that lay all around us. The burnt body in the car. The corpse in the portico. The bloodstains on the marbled tiles. Whatever else lurked within these walls.

The others soon joined us, and we moved quickly then to hand them our backpacks, shrugging them off out shoulders while keeping our guns trained on the three doorways around us, and on the balcony above. Taj nodded to me as I handed him mine, offering me a small smile – not one of his Instagram ones - that told me everything. He'd known exactly what he was doing when he'd paired me with Jace, and the intent hadn't been lost on me. He wanted us to get over this shitty atmosphere my fuck-up had created. He'd wanted to give me a chance to put things right again. I gave him a ghost of a smile back, hoping that I could turn this around almost more than I hoped they would find Len's Aladdin's Cave untouched by the aftermath of the War.

The team followed Len through an archway on the left, leaving Jace and I to keep a listen out for any possible Grey incursion.

The minutes ticked by. Painfully. Slowly.

Silently.

After a while, Jace shifted uncomfortably.

'This is fucking madness,' he whispered, exhaling a shallow breath.

He didn't look at me when he spoke, but the fact he'd said anything at all in my presence made my unease dullen a little. It also made me feel slightly less guilty for doubting Taj's plan could ever work.

'You think Lenny is right about this place?' I said, inching closer. Len was a pretty solid, straight-up kind of bloke. I had no real reason to question his word, but I needed Jace's assurance now to steady my nerves and I also needed to know that he would at least hold a half-normal conversation with me. 'You really think this secret cellar exists?'

Jace scrutinised the balcony above, his troubled eyes searching, endlessly searching.

'I think London holds more secrets than anyone could ever possibly have imagined,' he said, rolling his shoulders back as if trying to ease the tension that haunted him. 'I talked with Len about it, firing him question after question. Think I pissed him off a little to be honest, but he's definitely been down there. Whether it's all still there is another thing entirely.'

'You think it's gone? All that stuff they had stored here?'

He shrugged. 'I really don't know. Everything happened so fast, didn't it? We don't even know what happened to Queenie and her Royal brood, do we? Maybe they were whisked to safety and are holed up somewhere safe where even the Greys can't find them. Maybe they were all killed. Fuck, maybe we were right and some of them were already Greys.'

Most in the group had initially assumed the reason the Greys had turned Whitehall and the Palaces into the Black Zone was to make a well-planned statement, another way of crushing whatever survivors remained by saying look what we did, look where we are now, look what belongs to us and not you. But Jace and I had long said that if Greys had infiltrated governments, then it was highly likely they'd gained leverage in the Royal household too.

Of course, we'd also joked that if they had managed to infect the Royals, they'd definitely have gone for William and Harry, but they'd probably have given Phillip a wide berth on account of the fact he was an insufferable, prejudiced old bastard. I already missed our easy conversations and banter, because with Jace, it was easy and there wasn't much in life that was easy anymore.

As if reading my mind, Jace sighed.

'Look,' he said, keeping his voice to a whisper, 'whatever happens here today, you know I still have your back, right?'

I raised a brow, hope igniting within. 'Do you?'

He winced. 'Fucking Hell, Evie, of course I do. I had no idea just how screwed up you still were over the Rico thing. I should have realised.' He looked at me then – really looked at me, instead of glancing through me like I was made of glass. 'It's done, okay? Over. We move on because that's all we can do, right? Next time, do me a favour though, yeah? Let me get out of range before you decide to blow a Grey's brains out, so I don't get half a ton of that shit all over my face. I've got an image to uphold.'

He grinned, that typical Jace grin that always gave him a half-mad look because it was all teeth and devilish sparkle.

'I'm guessing you're not hot for this mission either?' he said. He read me well. He always did.

'I don't know,' I said, feeling an odd sense of betrayal by voicing my concerns. 'We're risking a Hell of a lot coming this far in, but I've seen the supplies we have left in the store and I hate to say it, but we really don't have a lot of choice.'

Jace nodded, his gaze drifting again, but alert. 'Pretty sure Taj is just excited at the thought of finding that wine cellar.'

I nudged him with my elbow, stifling a laugh that I wished I could let go of for a change, instead of holding it in.

'What?' he whispered back, his eyes all fake innocence. 'That man has some expensive tastes to cater for, don't forget. Let's just hope those expensive tastes don't lead us into the shit. I'm not in the mood to have my genetic material feasted on by a bunch of Greys. Unless that Grey happens to now be masquerading as Ariana Grande, in which case, I'll serve myself up on the finest Royal family porcelain platter.'

I groaned. 'You are such a perv.'

'Man's got needs,' he replied with a shrug, just as the crack of distant gunshots rang out.

Instinctively, we both turned sharply in the direction of the gunfire, all humour dissolved into something that made the air around us turn instantly brittle with tension.

Jace shot me a questioning look. 'Outside?' he said, his voice low, and I nodded in agreement.

We both knew gunshots meant only one thing.

Other survivors.

Most survivor groups kept themselves to themselves. Experience had taught most of us a harsh lesson. In a world where humans had turned on one another, the dawning of this new chaotic age hadn't suddenly gifted us with a profound and meaningful love for our fellow man. All trust had been obliterated as we had turned on those we'd loved. As we'd fought in the streets, tearing down whatever societal systems had held us together. As we'd dropped bombs on each other. As we'd destroyed everything we had built and unwittingly prepared Earth for the onslaught of the Final Wave.

Yet, with Lena's group gone, probably at the hands of the now-dead Rico, the concept of other survivors came with something new and unexpected. We didn't want to be the only ones left, because that meant the unthinkable. That meant humanity had probably already lost and everything we were now doing to survive was a charade. A last pathetic stand against an unbeatable foe.

'Cover the entrance,' Jace said, padding silently across the Hall. 'I'm going to take a look.'

My eyes widened. 'What? Jace, no!' I hissed at him as he disappeared through a marbled archway on the other side.

Fuck. Fuck.

More gunshots rang out, louder this time. I couldn't just stand here and do nothing.

Uttering another curse, I ran in the same direction, finding myself in a long plush-carpeted corridor which led to the back of the house. It was eerily quiet now, save for my shallow breaths as I searched for Jace, my gun trained on any open doorway that I happened to pass, checking each room as I went.

Reaching a large state room at the end of the corridor, I stepped through the doorway carefully, eyeing the thousands of shattered beads of glass from the chandelier which had either been shot from the high ceiling, or maybe had fallen when the bombs had rocked the city's foundations. A myriad of fractured light radiated from the carpet of sparkling glass as the sunlight shone through the tall terrace glass doors at the back of the room.

To my relief, Jace was here, standing to the side of one of those doors now, keeping just out of sight as he looked through at the wide terrace and gardens beyond. He beckoned for me to come over, with a furious wave of his hand.

'Quick,' he said. 'It's Lena.'

I moved to his side, peering out, my mouth dropping open, a chasm opening up in my stomach.

He was right. It was Lena.

She was running across the lawn, her left arm limp by her side, drenched from shoulder to wrist in the same colour as the scarlet carpet we now stood on. She was clearly in a bad way and in a whole world of trouble by the looks of things and by her side, helping her along, urging her to keep going, and every now and then turning to fire off shots into the line of trees, was Tom.

Not Tom. The creature. The Grey.

For a split second, I was lost, drowning not only in the sight of him but by the realisation he was firing off shots at his own kind, the Greys now visible as they swarmed out into the gardens. They came through the treeline, some dropping spider-like from the branches, most already on the ground, their long spindly limbs and deft speed helping them gain on their intended targets.

I didn't understand any of this. Why was someone I knew to be a Grey shooting at his own people? None of this made any sense. Was Lena a Grey too? Was that why he was helping her?

Halfway across the garden, Lena stumbled, and Tom grabbed for her waist, hauling her back to her feet, but her tumble had cost them dearly.

One Grey, larger and quicker than the rest, no doubt spurred on by the sight of their prey losing speed, broke free of the swarm and with a burst of energy, it sprang into the air, its whole body one grotesque mass of limbs and frightening agility.

With my heart in my mouth, I jumped forward, unable to stop myself, just as I was unable to stop from saying his name out loud.

'Tom!' I gasped.