Ninety-Two Days Before the Ice

Tear It Up

Slap!

Lexi's palm struck his face a second time.

Rhys lifted a hand to his burning cheek, stunned to his core. "Why did you slap me?"

"What is wrong with you today?" She rolled her eyes. "I told you to sign. Are you deaf and stupid?"

He didn't answer, he was simply memorizing the room.

Sunlight poured through floor-to-ceiling windows. Traffic hummed below, cool air whispered from the vents, carrying the smell of coffee and carpet cleaner. Nothing here was frozen—nothing here was dying.

Ten years of survival instinct counted the exits for him: one door, one window, three people, no weapons. He forced his shoulders down when he realized that nobody here was going to bite.

He looked down at his hands, there was no frostbite, no black fingertips and no scars from ten years of wasteland blades.

Across the desk, a bank manager in a navy blazer watched the couple in open alarm. Her name tag read Ms. Whitaker.

He knew this room.

On this exact day, in his first life, Rhys had walked into this bank to mortgage the house his parents left him. The money was for Lexi's younger brother, Henry, who swore he was building the next great tech company. 

Within a month, Henry had gambled every cent away in an online casino and left Rhys holding the debt. Then came the collection calls, then the foreclosure notice, then the night Lexi told him, dry-eyed, that it was his fault for not watching her brother more closely.

Nine years into the marriage, and Rhys had still believed it was love. Ten more years would pass before that belief killed him.

Classic Stowes. And he had been the only one in that family who ever paid.

"Rhys. Sign it now." Lexi pressed the pen into his fingers and slid the loan agreement under his hand, her voice dropping into that sweet, practiced coax. "We're not losing the house. Henry's company is going to be huge. Think of it as an investment."

He remembered that voice. Once, it had sounded like affection. Once, it had worked every time.

Somewhere behind the sunshine, a clock was running. Ninety-two days. Every dollar he owned would be worthless by then, unless he turned it into food, fuel and steel first. He could not afford to lose one cent to Henry's gambling habit.

Rhys weighed the pen in his hand the way he once weighed a rifle: a small thing that could decide everything. Then he picked up the contract.

He read the first line, then the second. He took a deep breath, then he tore it cleanly in half.

The pieces drifted onto the mahogany desk, and the whole office stopped breathing.

"Have you lost your damn mind?" Lexi shrieked.

Rhys turned to the manager and spoke with perfect calm. "Ms. Whitaker, please revoke every authorization my wife holds over my accounts. From today, no transfer, withdrawal, or change of any kind is approved unless I appear in person with a valid ID."

The manager hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Right away, Mr. Darby."

"No!" Lexi lunged at the desk. "Don't listen to him! He has no idea what he's saying!"

"The accounts are registered in his name alone, Mrs. Darby," Ms. Whitaker said, apologetic and firm. "We're obliged to follow his instructions." She turned back to Rhys. "Shall I process this immediately?"

"Immediately."

Lexi spun toward the manager. "Tell him he can't do this to his own wife!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Darby. I can only act on the account holder's instructions."

In his first life, this was the moment Rhys would have caved. He would have apologized, picked up the pen, and signed away his parents' home with a shaking hand.

Lexi went rigid.

Lexi leaned close enough that only he could hear. "You'll regret this tonight."

"I regretted nine years already," Rhys said quietly.

For years she had treated his salary as the Stowes' private garden. He had paid their bills, funded their schemes, and cleaned up every mess without protest. A cheap trinket and a wounded look had always been enough to bring him to heel.

Now he was looking at her as though she were a stranger.

She didn't understand it. She didn't want to understand it. What she felt was fury, and it came out like a whip.

"What are you trying to prove?" she hissed. "I can't take it anymore, Rhys! All you ever give me are cheap little trinkets. Never anything I actually want!"

She dug into her purse and hurled a small box at his chest.

It bounced off and hit the floor, and the lid flew open.

A plain gold ring rolled across the carpet, spun in a lazy circle, and settled against the toe of his shoe.

Rhys stopped breathing.

The ring lay where it had stopped, small and dull, catching a sliver of sunlight. Nobody else in the room understood what had just rolled across that carpet.

His family heirloom—-the dimensional ring.

In his first life, that ring had ended up on her finger, the last thing he saw before the ravine. In this one, she had just thrown it away.

Lexi had tossed aside the one thing that would let him survive the end of the world.

He almost thanked her.