Chapter 2

I sat up the moment I woke and reached for my face.

My fingertips met intact skin—no scabs, no hardened edges where gauze used to cling. My chest didn’t carry that dull, tearing pain that came with every breath, either.

I had come back three days before the fire.

I didn’t need a second check.

What I did on this day in my last life—what I said, what I promised—I remembered more clearly than anyone, because from this point on, every “normal” arrangement would become the noose Ryan and Selene had prepared for me.

I got up, opened the closet, and pulled on a shirt. I moved without hurry.

In the mirror, my face was pale but unscarred—no burns, no warped tissue. More importantly, my eyes weren’t panicked.

I sat at the desk, tore off a sticky note, and wrote three lines as neatly as I would an incident log:

Time of ignition: Friday. Smoke starts around 22:17. Full alarm triggers at 22:22.  

Location: Near the records room on the 21st floor. First, abnormal heat in the hallway ceiling; then flames licking out from the door seam.  

Key script: Cameras go down. Selene is “trapped.” I rush into the fire to save her.

My pen paused. I added a short note beside it: They need me to show up.

Last time, I did.

I ran into the fire and dragged Selene out. When she woke up and changed her story—when she pointed at me—my mere presence at the scene became the sharpest evidence against me.

Anything I said afterward sounded like an excuse, because I had been near the records room. I had the access to cut the cameras. I had the opportunity to start the fire. They had written the story so it fit me perfectly.

So my goal this time was simple: I wouldn’t enter the fire.

But I needed them to believe I would. Only then would they follow their original script all the way through—right up until the stage collapsed under them.

I picked up my phone, opened the map, and started looking for the right place: close to the office, heavy camera coverage, steady foot traffic at night…

It didn’t take long before I settled on a convenience store at a nearby intersection.

There was a fixed camera outside the entrance, and more inside—over the register and the coffee station. A card payment would leave a precise time stamp.

More importantly, a few street thugs tended to loiter along that block at night, picking off anyone who looked easy.

I’d passed them twice in my last life. Back then, I hadn’t had the headspace to care.

Now I memorized the route and let the plan take shape.

Twenty minutes before the fire, I would leave the building. I would buy coffee at the convenience store and pay by card. I would make sure someone noticed me with cash or a watch. I would get robbed. I would argue. I would call the police. I would end up at the station giving a statement.

That way, when the alarms went off, I would be sitting across from an officer. No one would be able to pin “arson” on me.

I wasn’t planning to get seriously hurt, and I wasn’t planning to let the situation spiral into something I couldn’t control.

I only needed an alibi hard enough that Ryan’s PR spin couldn’t bend it—hard enough to survive lawyers, headlines, and the kind of public certainty that ignores nuance.

A police record. Camera footage. A purchase log. That was enough.

Once the plan was set, I moved to the second task: laying the groundwork for the illusion that I would be in the office that night.

At 9:30 a.m., I entered the Knox Financial annex as usual.

The access reader beeped briefly. The screen flashed my name and clearance level.

My role gave me legitimate access to door permissions, requests to pull surveillance footage, keys and visitor procedures, and coordination for emergency plans and incident records.

Last time, they used that against me. They made me the “most convenient suspect.”

This time, I would use the same fact—only in the opposite direction.

I stopped by the front desk first and handed over a routine inspection checklist, asking the receptionist to log it.

She glanced up. “You’re early today.”

“We’ve got an overnight inventory check on Friday,” I said casually. “I need to verify door access points and count equipment-room keys. I’ll probably be here late.”

Leaving the front desk, I detoured to the ground-floor security office.

The old guard on duty was watching the wall of monitors. I knocked lightly on the doorframe and stepped inside.

“I’ll be doing a round of inspections Friday night,” I told him.

I placed the inspection form on his desk. “I’ll likely go above the twentieth floor, and I’ll take a look around the records area, too. If you see me moving through the building, you don’t need to flag anything.”

He looked at the form and grunted. “Haven’t you been leaving on time lately?”

“Inventory week,” I said. “Besides, Selene’s been working late, hasn’t she? I’ll wait and go home with her.”

I said it like small talk, but it did what I needed: it folded Selene into the expected background of that night.

Last time, they wanted the story to be “Aiden stayed in the building because of Selene.” This time, I let that story keep breathing—because it would make them comfortable enough to follow the script.

After leaving the security office, I went up to the facilities room, opened the system, and created a routine inspection work order for Friday night.

The contents were straightforward: random checks on door access points, key verification for equipment rooms, inspection of emergency lights and fire hose cabinets.

Everything was compliant and reasonable, fully within my job duties, and it would leave a clear scheduled time window in the system—Friday, 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.

I closed the page and exhaled evenly. I wasn’t doing this to deceive investigators. I wouldn’t forge records, and I wouldn’t tamper with access logs.

I was building the appearance of “Aiden is supposed to be there” before the fire—so the people who planned to exploit that appearance would step into it themselves.

At noon, I ate in the company cafeteria as usual. Selene messaged me.

“Are you busy this Friday? I might have to work really late.”

The words were simple, but they pricked like a needle.

I remembered her asking the same thing in my last life, then calling me during the fire, crying like she was truly trapped.

Back then, I hadn’t doubted her. The tone was too familiar—like one of the countless small requests we’d shared in daily life.

I didn’t let my emotions move. I replied with two lines, carefully measured: “I’ll be working late too. I’ll be in the building. Don’t stay too late—message me when you’re done.”

A few seconds later, she sent back: “Okay.” Then another message: “You’re so good to me.”

I stared at those three words for half a beat, then set the phone face down on the table.

What she wanted was for me to keep playing the man who would run into a burning building for her. So I would keep playing—right up until Friday night, when I walked out through the revolving door.

If they wanted to make me the arsonist, they needed me near the records room. If they needed me there, they had to believe I would be in the office. If they believed that, they would light the fire, trap Selene, and wait for me to charge in.

And when the alarms rang while I showed up on convenience-store footage and police records instead, their story would snap clean in half. Ryan’s favorite line—“a domestic dispute”—would lose the one thing it depended on: my presence.

Before I left work that evening, Selene called. Her voice carried a sweet, airy lightness.

“Are you coming home tonight? Or are you staying at the office again?”

“Home tonight,” I said. “Friday will be busy. I’ll be in the building then, waiting for you.”

“Mm.” She hesitated. “I might be really late on Friday. Don’t get annoyed with me.”

“I won’t,” I answered evenly. “Do what you need to do. I’ll finish my inspections.”

She laughed softly, like she’d finally relaxed. “Then I can stop worrying.”

I ended the call, stood up, and reached for my jacket.

Outside the windows, the sky had gone gray, and the city lights were beginning to turn on one by one.

Last time, I walked into the fire under those lights, thinking I was saving someone. This time, I would walk out under the same lights and leave their script behind.

I ran the sequence again in my head.

On Friday night, I would show my face in the building first, so everyone could see I’d come in to “work late.”

Then, before the fire started, I would leave, buy coffee at that convenience store, and lock my time and location into surveillance footage.

The access logs would show I had planned to be on site. Coworkers and security would remember me talking about overtime. Selene would be convinced I would show up.

When she shouted my name through smoke, she would think I was upstairs.

And I would be out on the street, hearing the hiss of the coffee machine, the register’s beep, and the steady footsteps at the entrance to the police station.

I pulled the office door closed, switched off the light, and stepped into the hallway. Every step was steady, because I knew exactly where I was going—and I knew I wasn’t turning back.

In three days, they would set the fire.

In three days, I would leave that building—cleanly, completely.