The Phoenix Before Doomsday

---I died watching my husband hand our survival supplies to another woman.That's the first thing I remember when I open my eyes. Not the soft morning light filtering through the curtains. Not the sound of birds outside the window. Not the warmth of his arm draped across my stomach like I still belong to him.No. I remember the way he looked back at me. Just once. Blank. Empty. Like I was a piece of furniture he'd outgrown. Like five years of marriage meant nothing. Like I was nothing.He didn't even say goodbye.He just walked away with Victoria Sterling and her bratty kid, carrying the bag I packed with my own hands, my own money, my own desperate hope that maybe—just maybe—he'd come back for me.He never came back.I died three days later in a looted pharmacy, bleeding out from a piece of glass I couldn't even see, alone and cold and so full of hatred that it choked me harder than the dust in my lungs.And now I'm here.In this bed. In this body. In this life that isn't supposed t

---I don't stop running until my lungs feel like they're going to explode.My legs are burning. My chest is heaving. I'm bent over with my hands on my knees, gasping for air like a fucking fish out of water, and I have no idea where I am. The streets are empty. The sky is grey. The rain has stopped, but I'm still soaked to the bone, shivering in clothes that cling to my skin like a second layer of ice.I don't know how long I've been running. Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? Time doesn't make sense anymore. All I know is that I'm alive. Somehow. Against all odds. I'm still fucking alive.And that woman—She knew things.She knew about the veil. About the three days. About the scar on my palm. She knew about me.She called me a Receptor. Said I could sense the veil. Channel it. That I was the strongest one she'd ever seen.What the hell does that even mean?I look down at my left hand. The scar is still warm. Still glowing faintly, like there's something alive under my skin. I press my t

---The streets of Westbridge are empty.Not the kind of empty that comes with a quiet Sunday morning. Not the kind where people are still asleep in their beds, dreaming about coffee and pancakes and lazy afternoons. This is different. This is the kind of empty that comes before a storm. The kind where the birds stop singing and the wind stops blowing and everything goes still, waiting for something bad to happen.Something bad is definitely happening.The sky is wrong. It's not night—it's too early for night—but the light is fading like someone's turning down a dimmer switch. The shadows are longer than they should be. Deeper. Darker. They move when I'm not looking at them, slithering along the edges of buildings like they're alive.I can feel the veil pressing down on me. Heavy. Cold. Like a blanket made of ice and fear."Keep walking," Damon says. His voice is low. Calm. Like he's done this before. "Don't look back. Don't stop.""I'm not going to stop," I say. "I just—"I stop.Bec

---I can't sleep after the dream.My eyes are open, staring at the concrete ceiling, but all I see is her face. The woman in black. My mother. Kneeling beside me in that pharmacy while I bled out on the floor.She was there.She was fucking there.And she couldn't save me.I sit up. My body aches. My head throbs. The adrenaline from the attack has faded, leaving behind nothing but exhaustion and a bone-deep soreness that makes me feel like I've been hit by a truck.But I can't rest.Not when I know the truth.Not when I know she's out there somewhere, fighting the Collective, watching over me, sending messages through Damon and Sera and whoever else is in her network.My mother.The woman I thought was dead for seventeen years.The woman who let me believe she was gone.I climb to my feet. My legs are shaky, but I manage to stand. I look around the bunker. Mira is asleep in the corner, her small body curled up like a frightened animal. Cutter is snoring softly on a cot, his missing l

---The world explodes.Not with fire. Not with sound. With light. Pure, blinding, white-hot light that pours out of me like I'm a goddamn supernova. I feel it tearing through the cabin, through the walls, through the trees, through the veil itself. It's like I've become the sun and everything around me is burning.I can't stop it.I don't want to stop it.For the first time in two lifetimes, I feel powerful. Not scared. Not helpless. Not some abandoned wife dying on a pharmacy floor. Powerful. Fucking powerful.The light fades. I collapse to my knees. My body is shaking. My hands are trembling. But I'm alive. I'm still fucking alive.And when I open my eyes, I see the cabin.Or what's left of it.The walls are gone. The roof is gone. There's nothing but a circle of scorched earth around me, stretching out in every direction. The trees at the edge of the clearing are blackened and bent, their leaves turned to ash.Sera is staring at me. Her face is pale. Her mouth is hanging open."Wh