9: Paper Cash is useless Paper

CHAPTER NINE

Zaid didn't leave after they finished the pizza on the roof. He walked Betony down to the twenty-eighth floor, his tall, broad frame moving with a quiet, lethal grace beside her in the quiet hallway.

Inside the apartment, Zaid stood in the center of the living room, his sharp hazel eyes methodically sweeping over her layout.

"If the city grid fails, civil order will break down within seventy-two hours," Zaid said, his baritone voice smooth, grounded, and serious. "People who didn't prepare will look for those who did. You can't just store supplies out in the open, Betony. You need misdirection."

He walked over to the blank concrete wall near the kitchen, tapping his knuckles against the surface. "Tomorrow morning, I’m sending two corporals from my unit. Off-duty, completely off the books. They’re going to install a flush, steel-reinforced concealment panel behind your living room shelving. If anyone ever breaches that deadbolt, all they’ll see is an empty pantry."

Betony looked up at him, struck by the unprompted, protective instinct in his posture. He wasn't asking her how she knew to buy all this gear, nor was he demanding answers about her preparations. He was simply making sure she survived.

"Why are you helping me, Zaid?" she asked softly.

Zaid stepped closer, closing the distance between them until she could feel the faint, steady warmth radiating from his chest. He reached out, his large, calloused hand brushing gently against her cheek, his thumb lingering near her cheekbone for a slow, breathless second.

"Because in a city full of blind people," Zaid murmured, his eyes locking onto hers with an intense, heavy dark heat, "you're the only one awake. Rest tonight, Betony."

He turned and slipped out the door, leaving the quiet apartment humming with a sweet, electric tension that lingered long after he was gone.

By 9:00 AM the following morning, the heat outside had reached a suffocating thirty-eight degrees Celsius. The sky hung low and purple, thick with humid, heavy air that made breathing feel like inhaling warm water.

True to Zaid's word, two polite, low-profile military corporals arrived at Unit 28B with heavy tool cases. They worked quietly and efficiently, retrofitting a seamless, heavy-duty steel concealment wall disguised behind a modular wooden bookshelf.

Betony stood near the kitchen island, organizing a few decoy canned goods, when the muted voices of the corporals drifted over the whine of their cordless drills.

"...command base is already shifting capital," one corporal muttered quietly to the other, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Captain said once the grid fries, paper cash is useless paper. Standard military protocol for high-tier collapse is physical barter—gold bullion, untraceable bonds, tangible assets. Anything else won't even buy a gallon of water."

The words struck Betony like a physical bolt. That was so true. How come she hadn't thought about it!

Her mind instantly flashed back years, digging through buried memories of her teenage life before her father died.

Her parents' marriage had been a bitter, toxic nightmare. In the months leading up to his passing, her father, knowing Eleanor’s insatiable, greedy nature had secretly locked away his personal legacy assets. He had confided in teenage Betony, telling her about a heavy, fireproof steel document chest hidden beneath the floorboards in the basement of her mother’s house.

Inside were untraceable physical bearer bonds and small, high-purity gold holdings he had accumulated over a lifetime.

In her past life, naive and brainwashed by her mother's guilt-trips, Betony had completely forgotten the chest existed, leaving it behind while Eleanor bled her dry. But now, with paper currency on the verge of becoming worthless trash, those physical gold holdings and bonds were the ultimate post-apocalyptic leverage.

Her phone buzzed violently on the counter, interrupting her thoughts.

It was a frantic text from Clara, her former junior colleague at the news network:

“Betony! Your mother was just at the station. She was crying in Mr. Rogers’ office, claiming you abandoned her while she’s sick and stole her life savings! Mr. Rogers is furious—he’s preparing a live public defamation segment on you for tonight’s broadcast!”

Betony looked at the screen, her dark eyes entirely devoid of fear. A cold, dismissive sneer touched her lips.

Let Mr. Rogers broadcast his foolish defamation. In a few days, the television networks would be dark, silent metal boxes. Public opinion meant nothing to a dead world.

What did matter was her absolute survival.

She wasn't going back to her mother's house out of duty, love, or emotional obligation. She was going back as a cold, calculating predator—to reclaim the physical assets her father had left for her, and to close that dark chapter of her life forever.

At 1:00 PM, Betony pulled her truck up to the curb of the quiet suburban street where she had grown up.

The neighborhood was dead quiet under the unnatural, bruised sky. The oppressive heat shimmered off the black asphalt, and the distant wail of emergency sirens echoed from the downtown district.

Betony stepped out of the air-conditioned cabin, her heavy boots hitting the pavement. She wore dark jeans, a fitted black shirt, and her silver spatial ring glinting under the hazy sun.

She walked up the concrete path, her chest steady, her heart turned to pure stone.

Stepping onto the covered wooden porch, Betony reached out and knocked hard on the front door.

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

Footsteps echoed inside—heavy, angry, and unhurried.

The heavy brass deadbolt turned with a loud screech. The door swung open.

Standing in the entryway was Eleanor.

Her mother looked worn, her face flushed red from the stifling heat, her hair pulled back into a messy bun. But the moment her bloodshot eyes landed on Betony standing tall, elegant, and completely unbothered on her porch, Eleanor’s expression didn't soften with maternal relief.

It twisted into a terrifying, venomous rage.

Without a single word of greeting, without asking where her daughter had been, Eleanor’s face contorted with pure, unbridled malice. She pulled her right hand back with all the bitter weight of her cruel, manipulative soul, swinging her palm straight toward Betony’s face with violent, blinding fury.