Chapter 1

The last thing I remembered was the empty pill bottle and the unbearable quiet after Leo and Carol were gone. Then, darkness. Now, my eyes snapped open. The same stained ceiling of the trailer. The same smell of damp and despair. My head throbbed, not from pills, but from a life lived twice, a pain etched into my soul. I sat bolt upright, my heart hammering. Leo. Carol. I scrambled off the rotten mattress, my bare feet hitting the cold, gritty linoleum. In the next room, a small, shallow cough. Leo. Then, a weaker, raspier one. Carol. They were alive. Tears I didn’t know I still had streamed down my face. It was three days. Three days before the fever would take Leo, before Carol’s heart would give out from grief and neglect. In my first life, I’d been desperate. I’d considered that medical trial, the one with the whispers of fast cash and terrible side effects. Not this time. There would be no trial. No slow poisoning of myself for money that would come too late. This time, I would fight. David. The name was a shard of glass in my throat. My husband. Captain David Miller. He lived on base, comfortable, while we rotted here in rural West Virginia. He and Jessica. Jessica, the supposed widow of his fallen comrade. The lie that had destroyed us. I looked around the cramped, miserable space. My gaze fell on David’s old hunting rifle, propped in a corner, gathering dust. Some of his tools, rusting in a box. Not much. But it had to be enough. "Leo?" I called, my voice hoarse. "Mommy?" His voice was thin, weak. I rushed to his side. He was burning up, his small face flushed. "We're going on a trip, baby," I whispered, smoothing his damp hair. "We're going to see… someone." I couldn't bring myself to say "Daddy." Not yet. Carol was awake, her eyes cloudy but aware. She looked at me, a question in her frail gaze. "We're leaving, Carol," I said, my voice firm, a resolve I hadn't possessed in my first life hardening within me. "We're going to David." She just nodded, a flicker of something – hope? fear? – in her eyes. There was no time to waste. No time for doubt. This was my one chance. Our one chance. And I wouldn't let them die again.