Chapter 1

I share one body with Allen.

I’m the second self. He’s the original—kind, yielding. I handle everything that isn’t polite.

Together, we built a company from nothing—until an accident put me into a two-year sleep. Allen kept living alone in our body.

When I opened my eyes again, I was locked inside a car with sabotaged brakes, racing toward a cliff.

In those two years, a woman named Victoria slipped in, stole Allen’s trust and affection, and took control of our company.

Now she wants him dead—staging a drunk-driving “accident” so she can inherit everything as his fiancée.

I shattered the window and jumped, barely surviving. She was already preparing my funeral.

When I walked into the service, she tried the same old tears and moral pressure to pull me back into her script.

She didn’t know one thing: none of it works on me.

————

The instant I opened my eyes, the first thing I caught was the stench of alcohol—so strong it felt like someone had held my head down and poured it in.

My throat was dry, my tongue bitter, my skull packed with cotton.

I was sitting in a car, and the car was moving.

No one was driving. It was sliding on its own.

I jerked my head up and realized I was on a mountain road. The lane dipped sharply downhill, and beyond the guardrail was nothing but black air—and beyond that, the ocean.

I stomped for the brake out of instinct.

The pedal sank like my foot had gone through air. No resistance. No bite.

The car picked up speed as it dropped, the needle climbing. The engine didn’t strain or surge. It sounded calm, like it had been set from the beginning to finish this job.

I leaned forward, my shoulder digging into the seat belt, and reached under the steering column, searching for a brake cable—anything that could stop it.

Nothing.

Whoever did this had ruined the brake system thoroughly. They hadn’t left me even a basic emergency option.

I tried the door. Useless. The handle was broken.

The guardrail reflectors flashed once in the headlights.

No time.

I drove my elbow into the side window.

The glass didn’t move. Only the dull pain up my arm reminded me this wasn’t a dream.

I clenched my teeth, yanked the metal headrest free, gripped it, and hammered the same corner again and again.

On the third hit, spiderweb cracks appeared. On the fourth, they spread to the edges. On the fifth, a hole burst open near the corner, and cold wind rushed in, carrying damp earth and salt.

The car was already at the guardrail. The tires skidded on loose gravel, the whole vehicle lurching sideways.

I widened the opening with the headrest until my shoulder could fit. I twisted and forced myself out. The jagged edge of the glass sliced my arm with a burning sting. Blood ran down my wrist fast, but I couldn’t spare it a glance.

The moment the car slammed the rail, I threw myself through the window. My shoulder hit first. I rolled twice, and behind me came the roar of the engine and the shriek of metal folding.

Sharp stones bit into my palm. I shoved off and lunged to the side, crashing into the bushes along the road.

I stayed low in their shadow, holding my breath, eyes locked on the car.

It didn’t stop. It didn’t hesitate.

The front end tipped over the guardrail. The taillights wobbled in the dark like a last reflex, and then the whole car flipped out and dropped into the void.

A few seconds later came a dull, distant impact against the sea—and then nothing.

I didn’t move right away.

The bushes were damp and close, the smell of soil mixed with the stink of liquor on my clothes, turning my stomach.

I lowered my face, leaving only one eye exposed, and scanned up the road.

Then I saw it—glinting.

At a bend higher up, a vehicle sat in the shadows with its lights off. Something metallic or glass caught the moonlight once, then again—like someone lifting binoculars or a camera, checking the cliff to confirm something.

That reflection wasn’t random. And it sure as hell wasn’t a passerby.

My stomach sank as the details snapped into a single line: I’d been drugged with alcohol, the door handle had been sabotaged, the brakes destroyed, the car left on a downhill stretch near the cliff, the parking brake released so it would roll on its own—and someone waited at a distance to confirm it went over, turning it into a clean “drunk driving” accident.

This wasn’t bad luck.

It was a tidy murder. One that didn’t even require footprints at the scene.

I slowed my breathing on purpose, forcing my heart rate down. My fingers dug into the roots beneath the leaves, making myself stay silent.

It was probably too dark. The angle was wrong. They hadn’t seen me bail out through the window.

I pressed deeper into the bushes, using the branches as cover, and inched to a lower spot.

Minutes later, an engine started up in the distance. That car turned around and drove back the way it had come, slow and casual—like finishing routine work.

Only when the sound faded completely did I let a thin stream of air out of my lungs.

My sleeve was soaked where the cut had bled through. The dizziness hadn’t cleared. Residual alcohol made my vision pulse and blur.

I pinched the inside of my thigh hard. Pain snapped me back into focus.

I was alive.

My name is Rex.

But this isn’t my body—this isn’t only my body.

The real owner of this body is Allen. I’m his alter.

As far back as I can remember, Allen and I have been together.

Winters at the orphanage were brutal. The heater always broke. Kids would fight over a single thin blanket.

Allen would always give up his corner to the smaller ones. He was gentle, yielding, even a little timid. He believed people could be reasoned with. He believed patience could buy peace.

I never did.

I learned a different rule: strike first, and you earn space; make them afraid, and you live longer.

Back then I was his shadow. I blocked the hands that reached for him. I handled things in the direct way he couldn’t.

He didn’t need to learn cruelty. He just needed to stay alive.

Later, we left the orphanage and built a business together.

Allen handled research and development. He could turn parts, data, and half-formed ideas into products that actually worked. He could sit in a lab all day without speaking and never get restless. I handled negotiations, security, contracts, cash flow, and every conflict that wasn’t polite enough for a meeting room.

If someone tried to steal a project, I went to talk. If someone tried to blackmail us, I stopped them. If someone sabotaged things from inside, I put the evidence in front of them and made them leave on their own.

We were a two-man team sharing one body. Perfectly synced. Trusting. Dependent.

My last memory stopped at a plane incident two years ago. The weather wasn’t terrible, but something failed without warning. Alarms screamed through the cabin. The fuselage shook like it was about to come apart.

Allen’s fear nearly tore our consciousness in half. He couldn’t bear the feeling of losing control.

I knew if he faced death head-on, he might shatter completely. So I made a decision—I forced him deeper, into sleep, and took the fear for myself.

It wasn’t gentle. But there wasn’t another option.

The plane made an emergency landing. Impact. Weightlessness. A sharp flood of pain—

And then black.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in this runaway car, seconds from being delivered off a cliff.

I felt for my phone. The screen was cracked at one corner, but it still lit up.

The fingerprint unlock failed once. I adjusted my angle and tried again.

It opened.

When the date appeared, my pupils tightened.

Two years had passed since that plane incident.

Two years.

That meant I hadn’t died. But after the landing, I’d fallen asleep—and Allen had woken up. He’d been the one in control of this body for a full two years.

I tightened my grip on the phone, pressing the cut on my palm until it hurt.

Two years was enough time to change everything: the company, the money, relationships, even who held power.

More importantly—if someone tried to send me off a cliff tonight, then someone had been trying to hurt Allen during those two years.

Who?

Why?

I forced myself into calm. Right now, the priority wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t chasing the person who checked the cliff.

I needed information. I needed to know what had happened over the last two years.

Wind scraped across the mountain road. Leaves whispered in the dark.

I pulled my collar up to hide the blood on my arm and slowly eased out of the bushes.

I had to get out of here, find somewhere safe, let the alcohol in my system fade, and start the only thing that mattered—

Digging through the last two years, debt by debt, lie by lie.

As for who tried to kill me, I would find out.

And as for the fact that they thought I was dead—

For now, I’d let them keep believing it, and stay relaxed.