Reborn Surgeon: The Billionaire's Secret Obsession

Rain did not wash things clean.

That was a lie people told themselves to make the storms bearable.

Here, on the edge of the limestone quarry, the rain only made things heavy. It soaked into Karly Lowe's oversized sweatshirt, dragging the cotton against her skin like a second, suffocating layer. It turned the dirt beneath her converse sneakers into a slick, treacherous paste.

She shivered. The cold was not just in the air. It was in her marrow.

Two meters away, Ardell Lowe stood with her back to the wind. She wasn't looking at the view. She was looking at a document in her hands. The paper was wet, the ink likely running, but Karly knew what it was.

A life insurance policy.

"You let it lapse," Ardell screamed over the wind. Her hair was plastered to her skull, making her face look skeletal. "The payment for the car! You let the insurance lapse before your father crashed!"

Karly took a step back. Her heel caught on a loose rock. The stone tumbled over the edge, clattering down into the abyss. It took a long time to hit the bottom.

"I didn't," Karly said. Her voice was a broken thing, raspy from crying, raspy from the screaming match that had started in the trailer and ended here. "I paid it. I showed you the receipt."

"Liar!"

Hakeem stepped out from behind Ardell. He cupped his hands around a lighter, the flame illuminating the hollows of his eyes. He lit a cigarette, took a drag, and exhaled smoke that was instantly snatched away by the gale.

"She's lying, Ma," Hakeem said. His voice was calm. Terrifyingly calm. "She kept the money. Probably spent it on books. Or stash."

"I paid it!" Karly shouted, the injustice burning her throat like acid. "And it wasn't an accident! The brakes lines were cut! I saw the shears in your truck, Hakeem!"

The air between them changed.

It stopped being about money. It stopped being about a family argument.

Hakeem dropped the cigarette. He ground it out with the toe of his boot. He looked at Ardell. Ardell looked at Karly. There was no love in that look. There wasn't even anger anymore.

There was only calculation.

"You know too much," Hakeem said. He took a step forward.

Karly turned. She tried to run toward the line of trees that marked the road, but her left leg gave way. Hakeem had kicked her in the shin back at the house. The pain flared hot and white, buckling her knee.

She scrambled, fingers clawing at the mud.

A hand shoved her back. Hard.

Gravity reversed.

The world tilted. The gray sky swapped places with the brown earth. For a second, Karly was flying.

Then she hit.

The impact was a thunderclap inside her own skull.

She landed on a ledge of jagged shale, thirty feet down. The sound of her spine snapping was louder than the rain. It was a dry, crisp crack, like a dead branch stepping on a winter morning.

She tried to scream, but her lungs refused to expand.

Pain didn't come immediately. It waited, hovering, letting the shock settle in first. Then it arrived, a tidal wave of agony that started at her waist and obliterated everything else.

She couldn't move her legs. She couldn't feel her feet.

Above her, on the lip of the cliff, a flashlight beam cut through the gloom. It danced over her broken body.

"Is she dead?" Ardell's voice drifted down, distorted by the distance.

Hakeem whistled. A low, sharp sound.

From the shadows of the quarry floor, movement. Low shapes. Growls that vibrated in the wet air. Wild dogs. They lived in the scrap heaps, starving and vicious.

They smelled the blood before Karly felt it leaving her body.

"Let's go, Ma," Hakeem called out. "Nature will clean up the mess."

Karly watched the flashlight beam retreat. She watched the darkness close in.

The first set of teeth sank into her calf. She felt the pressure, the tearing of muscle, but the pain was distant now. Her body was shutting down.

Rage.

It was the only thing keeping her heart beating. It wasn't fear. It wasn't sadness for the daughter she would never see grow up. Not just sadness, anyway. It was a white-hot, hollow grief for Hope, a name she'd only had the chance to whisper for three years. A face she could barely recall through the agony. It was a pure, nuclear hatred.

If I come back, she thought, as a set of jaws clamped around her throat. I will burn you all.

The darkness swallowed her whole.

...

Gasp.

Air rushed into her lungs so violently her ribs cracked.

Karly sat bolt upright. Her hands flew to her throat, clawing at intact skin. No blood. No teeth marks.

Her heart hammered against her sternum, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. Thump-thump-thump.

She looked around.

Wood paneling. Peeling beige wallpaper. A water stain on the ceiling shaped like a Rorschach test.

The trailer. Her old room.

She looked at her hands. They were small. Thin. The knuckles weren't scarred yet.

She turned her head to the calendar on the wall. A picture of a kitten in a basket.

May 12, 2014.

Outside the thin aluminum walls, a voice screeched.

"Shut that damn dog up or I'll poison it myself!"

Ardell.

Karly swung her legs over the side of the narrow mattress. Her feet hit the linoleum floor. It was cold. Solid.

She stood up and walked to the cracked mirror taped to the back of the door.

A seventeen-year-old girl stared back. Hollow cheeks. Dark circles under eyes that looked too old for her face.

Karly Lowe touched the glass.

She wasn't the victim anymore. She wasn't the girl who died in the quarry.

Inside this malnourished teenage body was the mind of a thirty-year-old trauma surgeon. A hacker known only as 'Phantom'. A woman who had advised billionaires.

She picked up a chipped utility knife from the desk. She slid the blade out. Click. Click.

The sound was the only music she needed.

The door didn't open. It exploded inward.

The cheap lock gave way with a splintering crunch.

Ardell Lowe stood in the doorway, a cigarette dangling from her lip. Ash fell onto the carpet, joining years of grime.

Karly didn't flinch. She slid the utility knife up her sleeve, the cool metal resting against her forearm.

"You're awake," Ardell snapped. She didn't look at Karly. She never really looked at her. She looked through her, at the space Karly occupied, calculating how much it cost to keep her there.

She threw a stack of papers onto the bed.

"Sign it."

Karly looked down. St. Jude Preparatory Academy - Voluntary Withdrawal Form.

"Hakeem got you a job," Ardell said, smoke curling from her nose. "Night shift at the cannery. Under the table. They don't care about age."

Hakeem leaned against the doorframe. He was younger here, his face smoother, but the cruelty in his eyes was identical to the man who had pushed her off a cliff.

"It's for the family, Karly," he said smoothly. "Dad's disability check isn't enough. We all have to sacrifice."

Sacrifice.

In the last timeline, Karly had signed. She had worked twelve-hour shifts gutting fish until her hands were raw. She had given Hakeem every cent so he could buy new sneakers and pretend he was a big shot.

Ardell stepped forward. Her hand raised. A reflex. A habit.

"I said sign the damn paper, you ungrateful little-"

Karly moved.

It wasn't a flinch. It was a pivot. A calculated shift of weight.

Ardell's hand swiped through empty air. Her momentum carried her forward, and she stumbled, hip checking the corner of the dresser.

"Ow!" Ardell spun around, shock warring with fury. "You little bitch!"

Karly stood perfectly still. Her eyes locked onto Ardell's pupils.

"Don't," Karly said.

The word was quiet. But it carried a weight that froze the room.

"What did you say to me?" Ardell hissed.

"I said don't." Karly picked up the withdrawal form. She held it up so they could both see it. "I'm not quitting school. And I'm not working at the cannery."

Hakeem pushed off the doorframe. "You think you have a choice?"

"I do," Karly said. "Because if you force me out of that school, Ardell, I'm going to call the regional manager of the factory."

Ardell's face went slack. "What?"

"I know about the inventory," Karly said. Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion. "I know you take boxes of copper wire out the back door every Thursday during the shift change. I know you sell them to the scrap yard on Route 9. I know exactly how much you've stolen."

Silence.

The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

Ardell paled. The rouge on her cheeks stood out like clown paint. "You... you wouldn't."

"Try me," Karly said.

She ripped the paper.

Riiip.

She tore it in half. Then into quarters. She let the pieces flutter into the trash can like confetti.

"I'm going to school," Karly said. "And I'm going to get a full ride scholarship. You won't pay a dime for me. But if you touch me, or my things, I make the call."

Hakeem stared at her. He looked like he was seeing a stranger. He stepped between Karly and Ardell, placing a hand on his mother's shoulder.

"Let's go, Ma," he muttered.

"But-"

"Let's go." Hakeem's eyes stayed on Karly. They were calculating. Assessing the threat. "We'll figure something else out."

They backed out of the room. Hakeem pulled the broken door shut as best he could.

Karly waited until she heard their footsteps retreat to the living room.

She leaned back against the wall and exhaled. Her knees were shaking. Not from fear. From adrenaline. Her body was weak, malnourished, flooded with cortisol.

She looked at the calendar again.

Final exams were next week.

And her father, Gus... his eyesight was failing. In the old timeline, he went blind three months from now.

Karly reached under the mattress and pulled out a burner phone she had hidden there in her past life.

She had work to do.

The kitchen faucet groaned when Karly turned the handle. Brown water sputtered out before running clear. She filled a chipped mug and drank.

In the living room, Ardell was on the phone.

"Yeah, boss. Cough's real bad. Can't come in." Ardell made a fake hacking sound. She winked at Hakeem, who was polishing a pair of Jordans on the sofa.

She wasn't sick. She was going to the casino. Hakeem had given her twenty bucks from his 'savings'-money Karly had earned cleaning houses last month.

Karly set the mug down. She heard a muffled curse and a heavy thud from her father's room down the hall, followed by Ardell screaming at him to be quiet. A knot of ice formed in her stomach. That sound was new.

She walked out the front door, past the rusted swing set, down the gravel road to the gas station on the corner.

She stepped into the phone booth. It smelled of urine and stale tobacco.

She dropped a quarter into the slot. She dialed a number she remembered from a lawsuit deposition ten years in the future.

"Factory Human Resources, anonymous tip line," a recorded voice said. "Please leave your message."

Karly pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and covered the mouthpiece.

"Ardell Lowe. Shift 4. She is currently in possession of stolen copper wire stored in the trunk of her '98 Civic. She is calling in sick today to sell it."

Karly hung up.

She felt nothing. No guilt. No daughterly hesitation. Ardell was a parasite. You didn't negotiate with parasites. You excised them.

When she got back to the trailer, Hakeem was waiting on the porch steps.

"Hey, Karly." He put on his 'good brother' face. The one that used to fool her. "Ma's just stressed, you know? Don't take it personal."

Karly looked at him. She wanted to vomit.

"I know," she lied. "I don't blame her."

"Good." Hakeem smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "About the money... since you won't work at the cannery, I was thinking. There are ways to make cash at that fancy school of yours."

Karly stiffened. "What kind of ways?"

"Rich kids are dumb," Hakeem said. "They need homework done. Papers written. Sometimes... they need someone to take the fall for stuff."

Inside the trailer, a scream shattered the morning.

Something crashed against a wall.

Ardell burst out the screen door, phone clutched in her hand like a weapon.

"They fired me!" she shrieked. "Those bastards fired me over the phone!"

Hakeem jumped up. "What? Why?"

"Said they got a tip! Said they're checking the cameras!" Ardell looked wild. She scanned the neighborhood, eyes darting to the neighbor's house. "It was that bitch next door! She saw me loading the trunk!"

She didn't look at Karly. Why would she? Karly was the furniture. The punching bag.

"We're screwed," Hakeem said, his voice tight. "We need that check."

Ardell spun on Karly. "You hear that? I'm out of work. You have to step up. I don't care about your scholarship."

"I can't work legally," Karly said, backing away, feigning fear. "I'm a minor."

Hakeem stepped in. "I told you, Ma. I got a plan. She can make bank at St. Jude's. Under the table."

Ardell glared at Karly. "Every cent. You bring me every cent, or you sleep outside."

"Okay," Karly whispered, looking at her shoes. "I'll do it."

Ardell stormed back inside to find the vodka.

Hakeem patted Karly's shoulder. His hand felt heavy, possessive.

"I'll look out for you, sis," he said. "Just do what I say."

Karly watched him walk away.

He had no idea. He thought he was building a trap for her.

He was just digging his own grave.