Chapter 5: A Kiss in the Storm
[Phoenixa's POV]
The airport's automatic doors slid open and cold wind pushed in, carrying the smell of rain.
I spotted my mother instantly.
Ms. Blanche Will was dragging that deep blue suitcase she'd used for years, her pale blonde hair blown into a mess, her thin-framed glasses — the ones she always wore in the lab — still perched on her nose.
She was thinner than I remembered. But she was standing there, whole and well.
Alive. Breathing. Smiling at me.
In the last life, she had died of hypothermia in the deep freeze. By the time I reached her, all I could touch was a hand already gone stiff and cold.
"Phoenixa?" she said.
I ran at her and hugged her so hard she staggered back half a step.
That familiar faint scent of soap filled my nose, and even though I bit my lip, the tears came all at once.
"Baby, what's wrong?" She patted my back, her voice soft and steady. "Did Cecil do something? I knew it. That boy smiles too perfectly. No good person smiles like that."
Her last line made my nose run even harder. "Mom, if you read people that well, why didn't you warn me earlier?"
"I did warn you." She corrected me seriously. "You said it was called gallantry."
That's my mother — she never lets a chance to twist the knife slip by, even while comforting you.
Back home, I set a cup of black tea in front of her and got straight to it: "In about a month, the whole world is going to turn freezing cold. Blizzards that last for ages. Power, water, transport — all of it collapses. A lot of people are going to die."
Her hand stopped on the cup.
I didn't tell her about how I'd died.
I said, "I got all of this from a very important, very powerful person. And from my own observations…"
The first unseasonal blizzard. The grid going down. Temperatures plunging past minus fifty. Supermarkets stripped bare.
I framed it all as deductions, and I made it sound as bad as I could.
In truth, those images sat in my throat like shards of glass.
"So," I said, watching her, "I've already fixed up the old air-raid shelter outside the city as a safehouse. You're coming to live there with me. We stockpile food and water, fuel, medicine — and we grow those cold-resistant crops you've been working on."
Mom was quiet for a few seconds, then reached out and felt my forehead.
"No fever."
"I'm perfectly clear-headed."
"That's what worries me more."
She said it like a joke, but her eyes held no mockery — only the caution of a scientist staring down anomalous data.
I knew words alone wouldn't convince her.
So I took her to the warehouse.
The generator hummed to life, and sensor lights flickered on row after row.
Crates of bottled water, canned goods, freeze-dried food, grain — stacked to the ceiling.
Thermal suits, sleeping bags, fuel stoves, medicine — all sorted and labeled by section.
In one corner sat three boxes of chocolate. In an apocalypse, sugar and a little bit of happiness matter just as much.
Mom walked from one end of the shelves to the other. She frowned at first, then slowed, step by step.
She checked the generator model. She tore open a polar parka to inspect the insulation filling. Finally she stopped in front of the seed cold-storage box I'd prepared for her.
"Who set these seed storage parameters?" she asked.
"From your papers." Then I added, "Mom, I know you brought some seeds too — the ones you genetically modified."
She looked up at me, and her expression finally shifted.
I opened the trunk of the little car and put a box of bottled water inside.
The instant the cardboard box vanished, her glasses nearly slid off her nose.
"There's no fill, and the weight doesn't change," I explained. "It holds unlimited supplies, and time inside seems to stand still."
Mom circled the car twice, then had me take the box out and put it back in again.
On the third try, she took a deep breath.
"All right. I believe you've run into something existing theory can't explain. The shelter's insulation layer has to be redesigned. I'll draw up the list tonight."
I laughed.
I nearly burst into tears again.
This time, I had finally kept my mother in the future.
Two days later, Mom suggested a short trip to the beach nearby.
"If the end of the world is coming," she said, "then all the more reason not to live every day before it like the end of the world."
Down at the resort beach, we ate hot seafood chowder and took a whole pile of photos in the sunset.
Mom insisted on printing them out, saying electronic devices couldn't be trusted down the road and this memory needed to be tangible.
I teased her for being old-fashioned, but when she wasn't looking I printed three extra sets and quietly tucked them into the trunk.
The next afternoon the sun was lovely.
I changed into a black tie-side swimsuit — not much fabric, but beautifully cut.
In the mirror my waist looked cinched tight, my long legs stretched straight, wet curls clinging to my shoulders and neck.
Even I had to admit this body was striking in a way that drew attention.
I had just stepped out of the pool area when I ran into Zander.
He stood by the hotel terrace, dark shirt sleeves rolled to his forearms, listening to a business partner walk him through the expansion project.
His tall frame stood out sharply in the crowd.
He turned his head, his gaze landed on me, and his whole body visibly paused for a second.
That face, usually cold as a winter night, began to flush — starting at the ears.
I didn't understand it, but I nodded politely anyway. "Mr. Rupert. What a coincidence."
He looked away fast, his throat moving, but his voice came out harder than usual: "Put some clothes on."
"What?"
"There are more than pool guests here." He pulled off his suit jacket and held it out like an order. "Put this on."
I glanced down at myself.
There was nothing wrong with the swimsuit, and plenty of other people around were dressed the same way.
"Mr. Rupert." I smiled and pushed the jacket back at him. "You're here to inspect the hotel, not my wardrobe."
His face went colder. His ears went redder.
I turned and walked off, mouth pursed in annoyance.
This man was domineering and, on top of that, completely inexplicable.
That evening, Mom and I were walking back from the beach toward the hotel restaurant.
The sky went dark all at once, the sea as if someone had poured ink over it.
The wind ripped the parasols out of the ground by their poles, and people ran screaming for the buildings.
A typhoon had made landfall.
"Mom, hold on to me!"
I dragged her back toward the hotel, but a crosswind drove a wall of seawater right at us.
The stone path underfoot was slick, my hand slipped free of hers, and I was swept through the railing.
"Phoenixa!"
Cold seawater swallowed me whole.
Water poured into my mouth and nose. I couldn't open my eyes — only hear a muffled roar.
The pain of dying in the last life swept over me again.
No. I don't want to die again!
I kicked and thrashed with everything I had.
A strong arm locked around my waist and hauled me upward.
"Stop fighting — it's me!"
Zander's voice was shredded by the wind.
One hand held the rescue rope; the other held me fast.
Another wave broke over us. I turned my head on instinct — and my lips happened to brush across his.
Brief, soft, tasting of salt.
His whole body went rigid. Then he held me tighter.
When the people on shore pulled us back onto the platform, I was coughing so hard my lungs hurt.
He knelt beside me on one knee, soaked shirt clinging to a hard chest, his face frighteningly pale.
"Phoenixa. Look at me. Are you hurt anywhere?" he asked, still short of breath.
I turned my head away without thinking.
The image of Cecil's betrayal drove into my mind like a needle.
Because of that, any man's closeness made me bristle and push away on instinct.
"I'm fine." I braced against the ground and sat up, my voice flat. "Thank you for saving me."
Zander's hand hovered in the air, then slowly withdrew.
His cold, aloof expression returned — only his lips were pressed very tightly together.
Mom arrived with a blanket, checked me over from head to toe first, then thanked him solemnly.
"If I remember correctly… you're Mr. Rupert, yes? Thank you. If it weren't for you, I don't dare think what might have happened."
Zander said little, just took the jacket a staff member handed him.
Soaked through and still dripping, he carried himself like he'd just walked out of a board meeting.
I knew that look in my mother's eyes far too well.
Young, accomplished, good-looking, and willing to jump into the sea for her daughter at the critical moment — on a mother's scorecard, that was probably close to full marks.
The crowd dispersed.
Back in our room, Mom remarked, as if offhand: "That boy is a good one."
"He's not a boy, and he's very domineering," I objected.
She gave me a strange look. I pressed her on it, but got nothing more out of her.
All I could do was stare at the rain outside the window.
And then it came to me: before the freeze arrived, I still had an old debt to settle.
When Mom went to shower, I called Dilia's whole circle of friends one by one, my tone so bright it even surprised me.
"The day before Dilia's birthday party, why don't I take you all to give her a surprise?"
I looked at the photo on my phone screen — a candid shot of Dilia and Cecil secretly embracing — and slowly curved my lips.
"Oh, and everyone remember to take photos and video. We'll want to capture her surprised face."
