Phantom Limb

"I'm sorry, but this flight is overbooked. We're going to compensate you twenty dollars. Please deplane immediately." The head flight attendant had my suitcase in a death grip. Her tone wasn't a request—it was an order. I gave her a cold look, then turned my gaze to the man beside us, who had just been escorted onto the plane, draped in designer labels. "Why does he get to board after showing up late, while I—who paid full price—am being forced off?" She let out a mocking laugh and lowered her voice to taunt me. "Because he's the son of a top-tier medical conglomerate in Scallow City. He's rushing there to beg an elusive miracle doctor—the famous Phantom Surgeon—to save his life. "No matter how urgent your business is, can it really compare to a human life? If you delay Mr. Stafford, ten lives couldn't pay for it. Now get off." Several security guards dragged me off the plane by force as I watched the cabin doors close. I laughed in sheer disbelief. The "Mr. Stafford" she was talking about was William Stafford, and he was terminally ill. What she didn't know was that I was the very "Phantom Surgeon" his entire family had been on their knees begging for three months—pleading with me to fly to Scallow City and perform his surgery today. Since they threw me off the plane, I won't be doing that operation. As for William, he can go ahead and wait for death.

Four years after my death, my wife—the CEO—was desperate. Her first love was dying of an incurable disease, and I was the only surgeon in the world who could save him. To force me out of hiding, she ran my mother down with her car, leaving her brain-dead with no chance of recovery. She had my father hanged from a tree beside my grave—while he was still alive. Then she went live on social media, threatening to burn my younger sister to death. She was waiting for me—the selfish man, in her eyes—to come crawling back, beg for mercy, and agree to operate on her one true love. But then her men finally looked into my records. "Boss... he's been dead for four years. "He died on the very day he gave you his heart."

I was a brilliant artist. But I crushed my right hand saving my mafia husband, Vincent, and my ability to create died with it for three years. Vincent promised he'd make me whole again. Our private doctor swore he was doing everything he could. But my hand remained numb, useless. Then, one day, I overheard a conversation that shattered my world. "Make sure she can never create again," Vincent told the doctor. "I can't have Isabella threatening Sophia's place in the art world!" "But, Mr. Torrino, another procedure might... she could lose the hand for good." "I don't care what happens to her! Sophia saved my life. I will not let her down!" It turned out my husband was the one who had destroyed me. And the assassin, Sophia, was the woman he truly loved. He let her claim my designs, turning her into the art world’s new darling while I was trapped in a broken body. When I confronted him, pregnant with our child, he slapped me in public and told the world I was losing my mind. That night, I burned everything that bound me to him. Then I dialed an encrypted number I hadn't used in what felt like a lifetime. "Grandpa. In three days, I need to disappear."

I fought my sister, Anna, for two lifetimes to become the Donna. In my first life, I got what I wanted. I became Lorenzo's woman. People said he loved me as if I were the air in his lungs. When he learned that I loved to dance, he bought an entire ballet company to keep me onstage. Then he broke my legs. He confined me to a wheelchair and displayed me like an ornament. One day, he brushed his fingers across my face and finally told me the truth. "I've seen enough dancing," he said. "And the one I truly love was never you." I died in that room, swallowed by despair. In my second life, I stepped aside and gave the Donna's seat to Anna. "You go," I told her. "The one Lorenzo really loves is you." I believed that choice would save us. I believed Anna would have the happy ending I never did. Five years later, they sent her back. Her legs were intact this time, but she couldn’t move them either. Lorenzo no longer treated her as a person. He had turned her into a ballerina statue, encased in plaster and posed at what he called her most beautiful moment, frozen in place. His men delivered the message without a trace of feeling. "He got tired of watching the younger sister dance," they said. "So he preserved her at her most beautiful." When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in my third life. Once more, the Don's men delivered a ballet invitation. Anna and I stared at it. The same question burned in both of us. If neither of us was the one he loved, then who was Lorenzo really watching?

Ten years after being the sole survivor of a catastrophic train disaster, a Tanzanian student discovers that his survival wasn't a miracle—it was a mutation. Now, he is the most wanted organism on Earth. FULL SYNOPSIS The crash should have killed him. The truck should have finished the job. Ten years ago, a midnight train to Mbeya was derailed by a mysterious explosion of violet light. Hundreds perished in the wreckage. Only one person walked away: an eight-year-old boy found without a scratch. The world called it a miracle. The government called it a closed case. Now a Form Six student, the boy just wants a normal life. But "normal" ends the day he is struck by a speeding semi-trailer in the city streets. In front of a horrified crowd, his severed limbs don't just bleed—they boil, snap, and regenerate in a terrifying display of biological immortality. Caught on camera, the video goes viral within hours, shattering his anonymity and alerting the shadows. He is no longer a student. He is Patient Zero. Hunted by "Six," a ruthless biotech corporation seeking to harvest his DNA to engineer a new breed of mutants, and pursued by a government desperate to bury the secrets of the Mbeya Incident, he is forced to run. With no allies and a body that refuses to die, he must uncover the truth about what really happened on that train ten years ago before he becomes a lab rat for the highest bidder. He survived the crash. But can he survive the hunt?

My boyfriend, Yves Steward, is the head of the orthopedic department. When Julia Henderson and I get into an accident at the same time, he pushes my hands away and shouts, "Stop this nonsense, Summer Simpson! Julia needs to be operated on immediately!" So, I'm the one who deserves to die. The day my skeleton is donated to the orthopedic department, Yves sits in his office for a day and night. Later, the man known as the hospital's genius orthopedist never holds a scalpel ever again.