Chapter 2

I didn't wake up in my bed, gasping for air. I didn't wake up at all.

I simply was.

I floated in a void of pure white. It wasn't heaven or hell. It was a loading screen. In front of me, a window shimmered into existence, lines of green text scrolling across a black background.

`WELCOME, SARAH MILLER. SELF-RESCUE PROTOCOL IS NOW ACTIVE. YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED LEVEL-10 ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS TO MISSION FILE #734.`

My mission file. My life.

Below the welcome message was a series of folders, neatly labeled.

`DEATH_LOG_01`

`DEATH_LOG_02`

`DEATH_LOG_03`

...and so on, all the way to eight. The ninth was missing, the one I had just experienced. This was a library of my own demise.

My hand, which felt both real and not, reached out and touched the first folder.

`DEATH_LOG_01: OPEN? (Y/N)`

I pressed Y.

The white void dissolved, replaced by the interior of a car. I was in the back seat. Alex was driving, and Chloe was in the passenger seat next to him, laughing at something he'd said. I remembered this day. A trip upstate. A picnic.

I watched myself, the old me, staring out the window, feeling like a third wheel.

Then it happened. A logging truck blew a tire, swerving into our lane. I saw Alex' s eyes widen in the rearview mirror. He wrenched the wheel. The world became a screech of metal and shattering glass.

The simulation froze the moment after impact. The car was a mangled wreck against a guardrail. I was slumped in the back, a piece of metal piercing my side, bleeding heavily. Chloe was unconscious, slumped against the dashboard. Alex was dazed, a cut on his forehead.

Then the simulation resumed. Alex groaned, shaking his head. He looked around, his eyes wild with panic. They landed on Chloe first.

"Chloe!" he screamed.

He ignored me completely. He unbuckled himself, crawling over the twisted center console to get to her. He checked her pulse, cradled her head. "Chloe, wake up. Please."

A new window popped up in the corner of my vision. An audio file.

`HANDLER_COMM_LOG_01.2`

I played it.

A cold, professional voice, the organization's handler. "Carter, report. What's the asset's condition?"

Alex's voice was ragged, desperate. "She's... she's not good. I need an evac. But Chloe... she's unconscious."

"The asset, Carter. Your priority is the asset. Is Sarah Miller stable?"

"I don't know!" he shouted. "I haven't checked! I have to get Chloe out first."

"You are abandoning your post. You are letting the asset die."

"I'll use a favor!" Alex screamed back, his voice cracking. "I'll use a goddamn favor, just get a medical team here for Chloe! I'll fix it. I can always bring Sarah back."

The simulation fast-forwarded. I watched him pull Chloe from the car. I watched him lay her gently on the grass. I watched, as if from a great distance, as the old me bled out in the back seat, my life fading while he focused only on his childhood love.

The simulation ended. The white void returned.

My heart, or the memory of it, felt like a block of ice. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't the chaos of the moment. It was a calculated choice. He valued her life, and he used a cheat code to undo his failure to protect mine.

With a trembling hand, I opened the next file.

`DEATH_LOG_02`

A fire. A cheap apartment building I was living in at the time. Smoke so thick I couldn't see. I was on the floor, crawling, choking. Chloe was there too, visiting me. She had passed out from the smoke.

Alex burst through the door, a silhouette against the flames. He saw us both. He didn't hesitate. He scooped Chloe into his arms and ran, leaving me on the floor. The last thing I heard before the ceiling collapsed was his voice shouting Chloe's name down the hallway.

I closed the file. I didn't need to hear the audio log. I knew what it would say.

I opened the third.

`DEATH_LOG_03`

A parking garage. An ambush. It was supposed to be a simple meeting, but it went wrong. Gunfire erupted from the shadows.

Alex's reaction was instant. He grabbed Chloe, who had come along for the ride, and shoved her behind a concrete pillar. He stood in front of her, using his own body as a shield.

He didn't even glance my way. I was out in the open. The bullets hit me. One, two, three of them. I fell, my eyes on him. He was staring at Chloe, his face a mask of terrified devotion, whispering reassurances to her while I died ten feet away.

The simulation faded.

I stood in the white void, surrounded by the ghosts of my own deaths. Each one was a testament not to bad luck, but to Alex's unwavering love for another woman. I was not a person to him. I was a problem he could solve with a "favor." A life he could afford to lose, over and over again.

The anger was a cold, clean thing. It burned away the last remnants of the girl who had loved him, who had trusted him.

She was gone. He had killed her one too many times.