The Break
This story contains explicit sexual content, dark themes, violence, and elements suitable for adult readers only.
© 2025 Rae Calder. All rights reserved. Do not copy, repost, or distribute without permission.
If you enjoy dark post-apocalyptic stories with dangerous men, survival tension, and high heat, you can find my newer books on Amazon under Rae Calder.
Emily stared at the cracked vial in her shaking hands. The casing had split clean through, a thin shimmer of liquid clinging to the fracture. Even in the dim light, the pearly tint was unmistakable. Her chest tightened. Months of work, gone in seconds.
Minutes ago she and her escort had been sprinting through the transport tunnel with raiders on their heels. Beck, which she was sure was his last name, had yanked her through a broken service door right before a blast of something hit close enough to throw her off her feet.
She crashed hard, her pack slamming into the concrete. Now she sat on the gritty floor of an old maintenance room, staring at the ruined vial.
Beck shoved a metal panel against the door and leaned his weight into it until it wedged tight. He stepped back, shoulders rising and falling as he caught his breath.
He looked like someone carved out of the Ashlands themselves. Tall, all corded muscle under a battered jacket, dust smeared across his jaw. Tousled sandy hair pushed back from his face, a few strands stuck to his temple with sweat.
Emily knew almost nothing about him, only that he was an ex-soldier of one of the more tyrannical warlords and that defecting from one was a huge risk.
She also knew that he didn’t talk unless he had to.
When he finally turned to toward her, his eyes looked her up and down.
“You hurt, doc?”
“No, I—”
“Good,” he said, slinging his rifle onto his shoulder. “Raiders’ll give up soon. Just keep it down and they’ll move on.”
Emily continued to look down at the broken vial. She felt completely numb.
“Did you hear me?”
She shook her head and looked up. Beck was standing over her, looking down over her shoulder.
“I’m...I’m sorry.”
“I asked what you broke.”
“It’s—” She swallowed, heat flickering under her skin, too warm to ignore. “It’s a sample.” She caught herself. “It was a sample. Something important.”
Beck’s brows pulled together. “How important?”
Emily pushed herself upright, her legs unsteady from the fall. She kept the cracked vial cupped in her hand, thumb brushing the fractured glass like she could take it back somehow.
“Important enough that I spent six months trying to get one viable dose.” She tried to level her voice. “The Ridge was waiting on it.”
Beck studied her face. “Is it dangerous?”
“Not...really.” She forced a steady breath. “There’s a chance it may not even work.”
“What do you mean?”
Emily hesitated.
“It’s supposed to increase fertility,” she said quietly. “Could help the population recover. That’s what the sample was for.”
Beck’s posture relaxed, but just a fraction.
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “But, um...”
“But what?”
She shook her head. “It could have effects when airborne. It could react different when inhaled. It amplifies other systems first and fertility as more of a long-term effect and...”
Beck stepped back quickly, boots scraping against the concrete. “Different how?” He took in her face again, his voice dropping a little lower. “Can this thing kill us?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Nothing like that.”
He didn’t look convinced.
And she absolutely did not want to explain the part she was avoiding.
“If anything happens,” she added, “it won’t be lethal.” A pause. ”If anything happens.”
Beck stared back at her, waiting.
“But it might be best if we wait it out...separately.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
She was already edging back a step further into the small service room. It was cramped and there was no way she could put as much space between them as she wanted.
Beck shook his head. “I’m not leaving. I’ve got a job to do.” He jerked his chin toward the door. “And the raiders are still out there. So no. I’m not wandering off so you can get dragged out by the first idiot who checks this place.”
Emily opened her mouth to argue, but a warm pulse slid under her skin and stole the words from her. Her breath hitched. The vial slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor.
She pressed her palms to her thighs and started pacing, short uneven steps across the cramped room.
Beck’s attention locked onto her instantly. “What the hell is going on?” He lifted a hand like he was ready to grab her if she toppled. “Tell me what’s going on,” he repeated, his voice low, commanding and gruff.
“I’m fine,” she said, but the lie fell apart halfway through. “Sometimes it breaks down in open air, but I guess...hopefully it just affects me. I should be fine...in a while.”
Another sharp wave rolled through her and she swallowed a quiet sound, heat crawling up her neck.
“You need to start explaining, doc.”
She stopped pacing and folded her arms tight across her stomach, trying to ground herself with the pressure.
“It increases hormonal activity,” she said quietly. “All of them. The compound reacts faster when inhaled. Stronger. It...it heightens things first. Um, desire. Sensory response. Stuff like that.”
Beck stared at her.
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
Emily shook her head.
“And you just carried it around in a piece of glass?”
Heat flared in her chest, sharp and defensive. “It was stable. It was contained. If you hadn’t of thrown me in this room, it would have been fine. Do you have any idea how hard it is to extract a viable dose from a mutant that wants to rip your face off?”
“I had no choice,” Beck shot back. “Next time, maybe don’t walk around with something that—” He stopped. “Did you say mutants?”
Emily dragged a hand through her hair, trying to breathe past the tight pull of her muscles. “Yeah. Their fertility is still intact, but their drives are completely unregulated. They stay aroused to the point of being volatile.”
Beck frowned. “So what, the sample was...mutant sex juice?”
“That’s not how I would put it,” she muttered, digging her fingernails into her arms. “They release a pheromone through their skin...a scent to attract mates. It’s part of what makes them so aggressive when they’re close to each other. We couldn’t isolate that part from the gland sample. It stays mixed with everything else.”
He stared at her like she was speaking a different language.
She felt another low throb tug through her abdomen and bit the inside of her cheek. Her legs wobbled before she could catch herself.
Beck moved fast, his hand closing around her arm to steady her.
“Easy,” he said.
The contact hit her like a shock. Heat tore up her arm and spread through her chest in an instant. She gasped, sharp and involuntary, her whole body tightening around the flare.
Beck’s grip loosened in surprise.
Emily jerked back, putting space between them so quickly her shoulder hit the wall.
“I’m fine,” she lied, breath unsteady.
Beck looked at her hand, then at her face, then at the tiny tremor in her legs.
“No,” he said slowly. “You’re not.”
Emily braced both palms against the wall, fingers splayed on the cold concrete, and tried to pull air deep into her lungs. It didn’t help. The heat kept crawling under her skin in slow, vicious waves, settling lower each time.
Beck stayed a few feet away, watchful and tense, like he was waiting for her to drop or bolt.
Emily swallowed hard, forcing her voice steady even as her legs trembled. “Just don’t come any closer,” she said, and hated how desperate it sounded.
