Chapter 1

The cold seeped into him first, a deep, numbing chill that started in his fingertips and crept relentlessly inward. Liam Hayes watched Chloe Davis, his wife, her face a mask of impatient fury. The dim light of the makeshift medical tent did nothing to soften the hard lines of her expression. Outside, a blizzard howled, a fitting soundtrack to the end of his life.

His blood, the miraculous blood that could heal, dripped from the tube connected to his arm. It pooled in a bag, a crimson offering to a man who was already dead.

"More," Chloe demanded, her voice sharp. "It' s not enough. You have to bring him back."

Her childhood sweetheart, Jake Miller, lay on a nearby table. His body, recovered from the mountain after a climbing accident a year ago, was frozen solid. A corpse.

"Chloe, it doesn' t work like this," Liam rasped, his own vision starting to blur. "I can heal injuries. I can' t raise the dead. He' s gone."

"Liar!" she shrieked, her grief twisted into pure venom. "You can heal anything! You healed me when I was paralyzed. But you won' t save him because you' re jealous! It' s your fault he went up that mountain in the first place! If you hadn' t forced me to marry you, he' d still be alive!"

The accusation was so wrong, so unjust, it was almost laughable. He had healed her to repay a debt. He thought she had saved his life years ago after a terrible accident. It was only after the forced marriage, a cruel reward from her family, that he learned the truth. The debt was a lie, and her love for Jake was an obsession.

He couldn't perform miracles. He was a medical prodigy, not a god. As the last of his lifeblood drained away, the world faded to black. Her hateful face was the last thing he saw.

Then, light.

Harsh, sterile, and painfully bright.

Liam gasped, his eyes flying open. He wasn' t in a frozen tent on a desolate mountain. He was in a pristine, white hospital room. The smell of antiseptic filled his nose. He looked down at his hands. They were whole, warm, and full of life.

A woman with a kind but worried face stood by the window. Mrs. Davis. Chloe' s mother.

He knew this day. This was the exact moment it all began. The day the Davis family came to him, begging him to heal their paralyzed daughter.

He remembered the hope in their eyes, the weight of their desperation. In his previous life, he had felt a profound sense of duty, a need to repay the girl he believed had saved him. He had agreed without hesitation.

That single act of selfless kindness had led to a year of loveless marriage, resentment, and ultimately, his own murder.

"Dr. Hayes," Mrs. Davis said, her voice trembling with a mixture of awe and hope. "We' ve heard about your... gift. About your unique blood. They say you can perform miracles."

She stepped forward, her hands clasped together as if in prayer.

"My daughter, Chloe... she was in a terrible accident. The doctors say she' ll never walk again. But we believe... we believe you can save her. Please, we' ll give you anything."

Liam' s gaze was cold. He looked past the desperate mother and saw the ghost of the woman who had watched him die. He saw the contempt in her eyes, heard the venom in her voice.

He had been a fool. A naive, sacrificial lamb.

Not again.

He slowly sat up, his movements deliberate. The weakness from his memory of bleeding out was gone, replaced by a cold, hard resolve.

"Mrs. Davis," he said, his voice flat and devoid of the warmth he' d shown her in his past life.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, meeting her hopeful gaze without a flicker of emotion.

"I have seen your daughter' s case files."

He walked over to the table where the thick binder of medical reports lay. He didn' t even open it. He knew its contents by heart.

"Her condition is severe. The damage to her spinal cord is catastrophic."

"But you can fix it!" Mrs. Davis insisted, a desperate edge to her voice. "We know you can!"

Liam met her eyes.

"No."

The word hung in the air, sharp and final.

Mrs. Davis stared at him, her expression crumbling from hope to disbelief. "No? What... what do you mean, no?"

"I mean," Liam said, his voice dropping to a calm, chilling tone, "that your daughter' s condition is incurable. She will never walk again."

Chloe, who had been silent in her high-tech wheelchair by the door, let out a sharp, angry gasp. He had almost forgotten she was there. In his previous life, he had seen her as a tragic victim. Now, he saw the entitled brat beneath the blanket.

"What did you just say?" Chloe' s voice was laced with disbelief and fury. "Incurable? Do you know who I am?"

Liam turned his gaze to her. He looked at her, truly looked at her, for the first time in this new life. He saw the petulant twist of her lips, the arrogance in her eyes that even paralysis couldn't extinguish.

"I know exactly who you are," he said, his voice like ice. "You' re a patient with an irreversible spinal injury. Nothing more."

"You bastard!" Chloe screamed, her face contorting with rage. She grabbed a vase of flowers from a nearby table and hurled it at the wall behind him. It shattered, sending water and glass shards flying.

"How dare you! My family could buy and sell you a thousand times over! You will heal me!"

Liam didn' t flinch. He watched her tantrum with a detached calm that seemed to infuriate her even more. In his past life, her tears would have moved him to pity. Now, her rage only fueled his resolve.

"Your wealth is irrelevant to medical science," he said, his tone cutting. "Screaming won' t regenerate your nerve endings."

Mrs. Davis rushed to her daughter' s side, trying to calm her. "Chloe, darling, please! Dr. Hayes, I apologize for my daughter' s outburst. She' s just... distraught."

She turned back to Liam, her face a mess of tears and pleading.

"Please, Doctor. There must be something you can do. A price. Name any price."

Liam remembered this plea. He remembered the blank check he had refused, driven by a misplaced sense of honor. This time, his refusal came from a place of cold, hard experience.

"My decision is not about money, Mrs. Davis," he said firmly. "It' s about medical reality. I cannot help her. My abilities, whatever you may have heard about them, have limits. Your daughter' s case is beyond those limits."

It was a lie, of course. He could heal her. He just wouldn' t. He wouldn' t sacrifice a single drop of his blood for the woman who had bled him dry.

Chloe, still fuming, pointed a trembling finger at him. "It' s not over. Jake will find a cure. He won' t let me stay like this! He loves me! He' ll make me walk again!"

Liam looked at the delusional girl, clinging to the idea of her adventurous, self-serving boyfriend as a savior. He felt a flicker of something, not pity, but a kind of detached fascination with her self-deception. Jake Miller, the extreme sports enthusiast, a healer? The idea was absurd.

"I wish you the best of luck with that," Liam said, his tone dripping with an irony that was lost on her.

He turned his back on them, a symbolic gesture he hadn' t been able to make in his previous life. He walked towards the door, feeling their shocked and furious stares on his back. He was leaving them to their fate, a fate he would no longer be a part of.

As he reached the hallway, a harried-looking man in a suit nearly collided with him. The man' s face was pale with anxiety.

"Dr. Hayes? Thank God I found you," the man panted, holding out a tablet. "I' m David Chen. My daughter, Sarah... she was in the same accident as Miss Davis. Her condition is... it' s even worse. The doctors have given up. They said you are her only hope."

Liam stopped. Sarah Chen. The name struck him. He remembered her file. A young woman, a brilliant student, whose car had been sideswiped by the reckless driver that had also caused Chloe' s crash. Her injuries were indeed more complex, more severe. In his last life, he had been so focused on repaying his debt to Chloe that he had barely registered Sarah' s existence.

He remembered the true story of his own rescue, a memory that had returned to him only in his final, dying moments. It wasn' t Chloe who pulled him from the wreckage all those years ago. It was a kind young woman who had pressed a unique compass pendant into his hand before the paramedics arrived. A pendant Chloe later claimed was hers. A pendant that truly belonged to Sarah Chen.

The man, David Chen, was looking at him with the same desperation he' d seen on Mrs. Davis' s face. But this time, the plea felt different. It felt real.

This was his real debt.

This was his real second chance.