Chapter 1

I remember dying.

It wasn't the Crimson Scourge that killed me, not directly. It was the mob. Their faces were twisted with fear and rage, their hands grabbing, tearing. They screamed my name, "Murderer!" "Traitor!" They believed the lies Mark had fed them, that I was the one holding back the cure, that I was the monster letting their families die. The irony was a bitter taste in my mouth, thicker than the blood. I had the universal vaccine, the one that could have saved everyone, but he had buried it, buried me, all for a few more quarters of profit.

My last thought wasn't of my lost family, or the world I had failed to save. It was of him, my husband, Mark Jensen. I saw his handsome, smiling face on a giant screen behind the mob, accepting some humanitarian award. He was a hero. I was the villain. His betrayal was the only thing that felt real in the final moment of pain.

Then, nothing.

Until now.

The air in the conference room was stale, thick with the smell of expensive cologne and quiet desperation. I blinked, the harsh fluorescent lights making my eyes water. The memory of the mob, the pavement, the pain, it was so vivid, so real, yet here I was, standing. Untouched.

I was in my own body, a year younger. It was the day of the quarterly press conference for OmniWell, Mark' s pharmaceutical company. The day he would announce the first of many "unforeseen delays" for the vaccine project. The day the lies began.

"...and while my brilliant wife, Dr. Evelyn Reed, has made incredible progress, the science is complex."

Mark' s voice, smooth and confident, washed over the room of reporters. He was at the podium, a picture of corporate responsibility. He gestured to me, a warm, proprietary smile on his face. In my past life, I had stood here, nodding meekly, my heart sinking with disappointment but trusting him completely.

Not this time.

"He' s lying."

My voice was quiet, but it cut through the room like a shard of glass. Every head turned towards me. The reporters, sensing a story, pushed their microphones forward.

Mark' s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. He gave a small, indulgent laugh.

"My wife is a perfectionist," he said, his eyes sending a clear warning to me. "She' s never satisfied."

Standing just behind him, a step to his right, was Dr. Alana Vance. She was younger, with sharp, ambitious eyes. Mark had brought her onto the project as a consultant. In my past life, I saw her as a colleague. Now, I saw her for what she was: my replacement, the one whose "simpler, more profitable" research Mark would champion while he sabotaged mine.

Alana looked at me with a carefully crafted expression of concern, a look that was really just pity and contempt.

"Evelyn, are you feeling alright?" she asked, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "You' ve been working so hard."

It was the same line she' d used before. The same condescending tone that made me feel small.

Mark' s gaze hardened. "Evelyn, we can discuss this later."

It was an order. The same order he had given me a hundred times, in a hundred different ways. The same order I always obeyed. For him, I had given up everything. I remembered the night I got the call I' d won the Gairdner Global Health Award, one of the biggest honors in my field. I was ecstatic. But Mark' s own project was failing, and he was spiraling into a depression. He told me my success would make him look like a failure. He asked me, begged me, to quietly decline the award. For us, he said. For our future.

So I did. I sent a quiet email citing personal reasons and watched the honor go to someone else. I sacrificed my own recognition to protect his fragile ego, and he didn' t even thank me for it. He just seemed relieved, and a week later, he was criticizing my research methods as being "too slow." The sacrifice was forgotten, taken for granted.

I looked at him now, at the man I had given my life, my career, and ultimately, my death for. I saw the handsome face, the charming smile, and for the first time, I saw the rot underneath. The black hole of greed and ego that had consumed him, and me along with him.

The grief for my family, for the life we lost to the Crimson Scourge, was a constant, heavy weight in my chest. But this, this rebirth, was a chance. A chance to save them, to save everyone. But it meant I had to stop being the woman I was. I had to let go of the Evelyn who sacrificed everything for a man who deserved nothing.

A cold calm settled over me. The hurt was still there, but it was no longer a weakness. It was fuel.

"No, Mark," I said, my voice clear and steady now, loud enough for every microphone to catch. "I think we need to discuss this right now."

I took a step forward, away from the wall where I was supposed to stand like a good, supportive wife. I stepped into the light.

"I' m done."