Reborn Before The End

CHAPTER 2: I WON'T SAVE THEM THIS TIME

Soren's Pov

I closed the bedroom door and stood in the hallway, listening to Elodie’s soft breathing through the wood.

Ordinary. Peaceful. The kind of morning that used to mean coffee, work, and the quiet resentment I swallowed for years.

My hands were still shaking.

I walked to the kitchen, ran cold water over my wrists, and let the ghost of the chain fade. The empty lot. The scarred woman’s eyes. Elodie’s silence.

I dried my hands and checked my phone again.

The date hadn’t changed.

Three months.

News app: local traffic, weather, a buried story about west-coast supply delays no one was taking seriously. Banking app: same balance, same joint accounts. Old messages: Tobin’s late-night demands, Bennett’s clipped orders, Maribel’s polite expectations, Elodie’s soft replies that always sided with them in the end.

Everything lined up.

I set the phone down and stared at the wall.

This was real.

I had died in that lot, traded like a crate of supplies, and woken up three months earlier with every memory intact.

Panic hit first. My chest tightened. I gripped the counter until my knuckles ached.

Then the anger returned, cleaner this time.

I knew what was coming. The blackouts. The shortages. The cities turning on themselves. I knew which neighborhoods would burn first and which roads would become traps. I knew the exact week the hospitals would stop accepting patients.

And I knew exactly what the Harringtons would do when the numbers stopped working in their favor.

They would look for something disposable.

I was not going to be that something again.

The decision settled like cold iron.

I would not warn them.

I would not save them.

I would not let them put their hands on my life a second time.

I moved through the apartment, gathering what was mine. Passport. Birth certificate. Tax documents. The spare key to the storage unit that had always been in my name only. In my head I separated the joint accounts, calculating what I could pull without setting off immediate alarms.

By the time Elodie’s footsteps sounded in the hallway, the plan was already forming.

She appeared in the kitchen doorway, hair messy from sleep, wearing one of my old shirts. “You’re up early.”

I didn’t look at her. “Couldn’t sleep.”

She yawned and moved toward the coffee maker. “You were restless last night. Another nightmare?”

“Something like that.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “You’ve been quiet lately. Even for you. Everything okay at work?”

“Fine.”

“Dad mentioned he needs you on the Riverside account today. The contractor’s pulling out.”

In the first life I had dropped everything and fixed it. Stayed until midnight. Made sure Bennett didn’t lose face.

This time I said nothing.

Elodie turned fully toward me. “Soren. Talk to me. You’re acting strange.”

I met her eyes. The urge to tell her everything rose sharp and sudden, the empty lot, the trade, her silence. The words pressed against my teeth.

I swallowed them.

She didn’t deserve to know what I remembered. Not yet.

“I’m just thinking about some things,” I said. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

Her expression softened into the familiar mix of concern and mild frustration. “You’re my husband. Of course I worry. Don’t shut me out. We’ve talked about that.”

I left the kitchen before I said something I couldn’t take back.

The summons came at 9:14 a.m.

Bennett’s message was short: *My office. Now. Riverside situation.*

I drove to the company building one last time.

His office smelled of wood polish and the citrus air freshener Maribel insisted on. He sat behind the wide desk, already irritated.

“You’re late,” he said without looking up.

“I’m on time.”

He gestured at the chair. “Sit. The Riverside contractor is threatening to walk. Smooth it over. Take Tobin if you have to. Just keep the numbers from moving against us.”

I remained standing. “No.”

Bennett’s pen stopped. He looked up slowly. “What did you say?”

“I said no. I’m not handling Riverside. I’m not handling anything for you anymore.”

Silence filled the office. Outside the glass wall, employees moved past with folders and coffee, unaware.

Bennett set the pen down carefully. “I don’t have time for jokes this morning, Soren.”

“I’m not joking.” I pulled the folded resignation letter from my jacket and placed it on the desk. “Effective immediately.”

He stared at the paper. Then he laughed once, short and disbelieving. “You can’t be serious. After everything this family has done for you?”

“I’m very serious.”

Bennett stood. The boardroom mask slipped. “We gave you a career. We brought you into this family. We treated you like one of our own. And this is how you repay us?”

“You treated me like an employee who lived in your house. There’s a difference.”

His face darkened. “Watch your tone. You’re speaking to your father-in-law.”

“I’m speaking to my former employer.”

Bennett’s voice dropped. “You owe us, Soren. Everything you have came through this family. The job. The connections. The life you live with my daughter. You don’t get to decide you’re finished just because you woke up feeling independent.”

In the first life those words would have worked. Guilt would have flooded in. I would have apologized and taken the file.

This time the guilt never arrived.

I looked at the man who would one day calculate the exact value of my life in crates of medicine and liters of fuel.

“I don’t owe you my life,” I said. “I never did.”

His jaw tightened. “Elodie will hear about this.”

“I’m sure she will.”

I turned and walked out. Behind me he called my name once, sharp and angry. I didn’t stop.

By late afternoon I had signed the lease on a small one-bedroom on the east side of the city. Modest. Quiet. No one from the Harrington circle would look for me there unless I wanted them to.

I carried in a single duffel and set it on the bare mattress. Then I sat at the table by the window and opened a fresh notebook.

I wrote down every major event I remembered. The first infrastructure failure. The week the grocery shelves started thinning. The day the hospitals began turning people away. The night the southern power grid went down and never fully came back.

I listed the supplies that would disappear first. Water purification tablets. Antibiotics. Fuel stabilizers. Long-life rations. Batteries. Ammunition. Seeds. Tools that didn’t need electricity.

I listed the places that would become death traps and the ones that might stay quiet longer.

When I finished, the notebook held twelve pages of tight writing. A map of a future that no longer had to include me as a sacrifice.

I checked the time.

11:57 p.m.

I remembered this night.

In the first life I had been asleep beside Elodie, oblivious. The news would break while the city still believed it was just another technical failure. Something the authorities would fix by morning.

It wouldn’t stay minor.

I watched the digital clock.

11:58.

The apartment was silent except for faint traffic outside. No generators. No distant gunfire. No smell of ash. Just an ordinary night in a city that still thought it was permanent.

11:59.

The minute changed.

Midnight.

For three full seconds nothing happened.

Then my phone vibrated hard against the table.

A breaking-news alert filled the screen.

I picked it up and read the headline.

My face went still.

The first disaster had begun.