Novels by dammytobi374

If you want to survive the end of the world, money is only half the battle.You need ground that cannot be conquered.In my previous life, millions of people died because they trusted modern luxury. They sealed themselves inside glass penthouses, high-rises and reinforced basements in the heart of the city. When the yellow clouds opened, the boiling rain ate through concrete like sugar in hot water. Drains backed up with toxic sludge, flooding underground shelters and turning them into pitch-black tombs.I would not make that mistake again.At sunrise the next morning, I steered my SUV north toward Cape Obsidian.The highway climbed along a jagged coastline. On the left, the dark ocean crashed against walls of black stone. On the right, pine forests rose up the steep flanks of Mount Obsidian, an ancient volcanic ridge fifteen hundred feet above sea level.It was a natural fortress. Solid basalt and granite, immune to water and chemical erosion, too high for any flood to reach its peak

The industrial outskirts of the city smelled of sulfur, burnt oil and rusting iron.Freight train tracks cut through weed-choked lots, running parallel to the muddy river. Most of the factories here had shut down years ago, leaving cavernous warehouses of corrugated tin and cracked asphalt.It was the perfect place to prepare for the end of the world.I turned the SUV down an unmarked gravel road and kicked up dust until I reached a fenced compound with eight-foot razor wire. A faded metal sign hung over the gate: LIN HEAVY FABRICATION.In my previous life, Maya Lin had been my closest friend from college. While I had foolishly poured my youth and money into pleasing Preston Whitemore, Maya had taken her engineering degree and buried herself in grease, hydraulic lifts and diesel engines. When the acid rain began to eat the city alive, Maya had loaded a customized flatbed with water filters, solar batteries and three drums of diesel, then fought across twenty miles of dissolving street

The midday sun hit my windshield as the SUV rolled up to Bennett Tower.Sixty stories of blue glass rose into the summer sky. To everyone in this city, Bennett Maritime was an untouchable empire of dry docks, ports and freighter fleets across three continents.To me, it was survival capital.I rode the private elevator down to the third subterranean level and skipped the corporate offices entirely. The steel doors opened onto a marble reception hall, where an older man in a charcoal suit stood waiting.Kade Hale.My grandfather had taken him in as an orphan forty years ago and raised him to guard the family trust. In my last life, Kade died trying to protect our food supply from the looters Preston let into the building.Now he stood in front of me, alive, with a pen in his breast pocket and a small coffee stain on his cuff.My throat tightened. I swallowed it down. A survivor could not afford to cry in a hallway."Miss Bennett." He bowed his head. "Everything you asked for has been d

The silence in the bedroom was so thick I could hear the air conditioner humming behind the wall.Preston stared at me for several seconds. Then his lips curled, and he let out a sharp, mocking laugh."A divorce?" He crossed his arms and shook his head. "Aurora, stop embarrassing yourself. If this is about Chloe's boutique, just say so. You don't need to invent drama."Chloe's boutique. I remembered it now. In my last life, I had paid its rent for two years because Preston said she was "family and struggling."Before I could answer, the bedroom door swung open. Chloe slipped in, still in her gym clothes, her eyes wide with practiced innocence. She had a way of arriving at exactly the right moment. I knew now it was never an accident."Aurora, please don't upset Preston," she said in her soft, breathless voice. "The Whitemore Group is in the middle of a huge acquisition. If the press hears about marital trouble, the stock will crater. Think of everything he has sacrificed to give you t

"You are a waste of resources, Aurora."I barely heard Preston's voice over the roar of the storm. I stared at him through the reinforced glass of the blast door, my fingers scraping the steel frame. I could not believe he was actually locking me out.Behind me, the sky was a churning yellow nightmare. The acid deluge had been falling for three days straight, melting asphalt and dissolving concrete walls across the city. The fumes burned my throat with every breath and filled my mouth with copper and ash."Preston, please." I coughed until my chest screamed. "Open the door. The acid is eating through my boots."He stood in the pressurized foyer of the penthouse, warm and clean in his cashmere sweater. He looked down at me without a single flicker of pity. Then he glanced at his watch, like I was a delivery running late."You're not coming in," he said through the intercom."This is my grandfather's penthouse!" My voice cracked. "I paid for these blast doors. I bought the air scrubbers