Chapter 1

I woke up with a gasp, the smell of burnt coffee and greasy bacon filling the air.

For a second, I didn't know where I was.

Then I saw him. Ethan Scott, my boyfriend, sitting across from me in the worn-out vinyl booth of our town's only diner.

He was smiling that smile, the one that made local girls swoon and old ladies trust him with their groceries.

He slid a rolled-up blueprint across the sticky table. "Babe, check it out. The ultimate survivalist influencer retreat. It's going to be huge."

My heart hammered against my ribs. The blueprint. The diner. The date. Ten days. I had ten days until the solar flare hit.

It all came back in a flood. A life I'd already lived. A death I'd already died.

In that other life, I believed him. I poured my family's company, our sweat and our savings, into building this exact bunker for him. He promised payment was coming, a big influencer sponsorship.

It never came.

Instead, when the sky turned a sickly green and the power grids began to fail, he changed the locks. We arrived, my mom, my dad, and me, and he laughed at us from behind the reinforced window of the shelter we built. He left us outside to die in the chaos.

Now, as he spoke, his voice was a smooth, charming river of lies.

"It'll have everything, Molly. A place for my followers to come, learn skills. It's for the community."

But underneath his words, another voice echoed in my head, sharp and clear. His real voice.

The sound was so real it was like he'd screamed it. I didn't flinch. I just stared at him, the man I thought I loved, and felt a cold, hard certainty settle in my bones.

It was real. The past life. The betrayal. And this new, terrifying ability to hear what people truly thought.

I forced a smile. "Ethan, this is amazing."

His thoughts were smug.

"But," I continued, tapping the blueprint. "If you want this to be the ultimate retreat, we need to go bigger. A Platinum Prepper Package."

His eyes lit up.

"Reinforced steel doors, a state-of-the-art air filtration system, geothermal heating," I said, listing the most expensive, labor-intensive upgrades I could think of. "It' ll be the best shelter in Oklahoma. Maybe the whole country."

I could hear the greed churning in his mind.

He leaned forward, his expression serious. "That sounds expensive, Mol. I'm putting all my capital into this."

"We need collateral," I said, my voice steady. "Company policy for a project this big."

He didn't hesitate. He pulled a folded paper from his jacket. The deed to his family's old, forgotten ranch land. It was miles out of town, worthless to anyone but a prepper looking for isolation.

"Use this," he said. "It's all I've got."

I took the deed, my fingers closing around it. "Okay, Ethan. I'll have my dad draw up the contract. Final payment due on completion."

He nodded, already thinking ahead.

I smiled back at him, a real smile this time. It felt sharp.

"I'll get started right away, honey."