Reborn To Bury Them My Doomsday Fortress

When your own family drains your blood to buy their way into the safe zone, waking up again is not a second chance at love. It is a loaded gun.

The needle in Rosalie's arm was cold, but she hardly felt it. The numbness had already climbed past her elbows.

The clinic room smelled of bleach and wet rust. Beyond the reinforced door, the Spore Fog scraped along the concrete with a soft, sticky sound, like a tongue dragged across a wall. In less than a month it had eaten three quarters of the city.

"Keep the line steady, Nicholas," a woman whispered. "The gate scanner checks cell density. If the blood is agitated, it may flag her."

Rosalie dragged her eyes open. The fluorescent light split into two, then three. Beside her gurney sat Sera Parker in a clean white coat, her cheeks pink, her hair brushed. Nobody out here had cheeks like that anymore.

For four years Rosalie had kept these people alive. She had traded her mother's jewelry for canned beans. She had stood between them and starving scavengers. She had given blood at every black market clinic in the district, again and again, because her type was one in a million and a pint of it bought a week of food for all of them. She never asked for thanks.

She had thought they were family. She had thought Nicholas loved her.

"How much more?" Nicholas Calloway asked. He sounded bored, like a man waiting on an oil change for a car he planned to sell.

"The bunker gate does an infection test on every new resident," the doctor said, adjusting the tube that ran into a glass jar. "Miss Parker has already been exposed to the spores. Only a full transfusion of rare, matching blood will clear her scan. Hers is the only match we have found. That means two liters. But Mrs. Calloway is badly underfed. Her heart will not survive it."

Rosalie tried to speak. All that came out was a dry rattle.

Nicholas did not look at her face. He watched the jar.

"She was going to die out here anyway," he said. "No fighting skills. No money left. Sera has cousins in the central sector. They can get us real housing. Rosalie would only slow the group down."

Sera slid her hand onto his arm. "Thank you, Nick. I knew you would not let me die in the fog."

"I promised I would protect you." His eyes finally dropped to Rosalie. "Do not look at me like that. You always said you would do anything for this family. Call it your last contribution."

The jar filled with dark red, slow and heavy. Rosalie's body went cold from the fingers inward. The room tilted. Her nails scraped the paint on the gurney rail and left nothing behind.

"Is it enough?" Sera breathed. She was almost smiling.

"It is enough." The doctor shut the valve. "Take her out the back before the fog finds the vents. We leave in five minutes."

Hands grabbed her shoulders and ankles. She was carried down a short hall and dropped on wet asphalt in the alley. The steel door slammed. The lock clicked, small and final.

The fog rolled over her at once. It went into her nose and throat like hot wire and began to take her lungs apart.

Her fingers curled into the dirt. One thought stayed bright until the very end.

If I get one more chance, I will not beg. I will not hope. I will take everything you built on my back and I will watch it fall.

---

Rosalie woke up screaming, except no sound came out.

She was upright, one hand clamped to her throat, waiting for the burn. It did not come. The air was cool and smelled of lavender and clean sheets. Her skin was smooth under her fingers.

She tried to breathe slowly and could not. Her chest kept hitching. Her hands shook so hard she had to sit on them.

Sun lay across a polished wood floor. Tall windows showed a city that still had all its lights, all its cars, all its people. She knew this room. It was the penthouse her grandfather had left her. In her old life she had signed it over to Nicholas's company four months from now, with a smile, because he asked.

On the bedside table, a clock glowed. October 14, 2:15 PM.

Fourteen days.

She pressed her palm flat against her chest and felt her heart knock against it, strong and ordinary. She let herself shake for one full minute. She counted it on the clock. Then she stopped, because the minute was over.

Her phone buzzed. The name on the screen made her stomach turn: Nicholas.

Rosalie, Sera's clinic bill came in. Move fifty thousand from your mother's trust into my business account today. Stop being dramatic about her staying at the villa. She is family. Act like it.

She read it twice. The first time, her hands went cold. The second time, they went still.

Her bank app opened on her inheritance, whole and untouched. Forty five million dollars in cash and property. Last time, every cent of it had gone to him.

A pale blue page unfolded in the air in front of her face, ruled like an accountant's book.

[Sanctuary Ledger opened.]

[Rate: 10,000 USD = 1 Ledger Point.]

[Objective: Convert assets into points. Build and arm your Sanctuary before the Spore Fog arrives.]

[Debtors recorded: Nicholas Calloway. Sera Parker. Dr. Lin Calder. Balance: unpaid.]

She waved a hand through the glow. It rippled and settled. Real enough.

Four thousand five hundred points. She did not know yet what a point could buy, but she knew what money was worth after the fog came, and the answer was nothing. A tin of beans had cost her mother's ring. She would take any rate that bought walls.

The three names sat at the bottom of the page like a bill. She read them once. She did not need to read them again.

The phone rang. Nicholas again.

She answered and said nothing.

"Rosalie? Did you see my message?" His voice was clipped and annoyed. "Sera needs the deposit by four. Do not make me drive over there and deal with your attitude."

"Nicholas."

"What?"

"I am not sending you anything. Tomorrow morning my lawyers will serve you divorce papers. Pack your bags and leave my home."

A pause. Then a short, ugly laugh. "You are insane. You cannot last a week without me. You have no idea how the real world works."

"You have fourteen days," she said, almost gently. "Enjoy them."

She hung up and blocked him. Then she opened her contacts, found her chief legal counsel, and stopped.

Another face rose in her memory. A tired man in a surgical cap, shutting a valve on a jar of her blood. She had heard his name once, through the door, while she was still conscious. Dr. Lin Calder. He ran a private clinic on Harbor Street, and he was in debt.

Rosalie dialed her lawyer.

"I need two things done before the end of the day," she said. "Freeze every joint account in my name. And find out who owns the clinic on Harbor Street. I want to buy it."