Chapter 3

I hadn’t forgotten that evening.

In my last life, I remembered exactly when Rick’s truck showed up outside the paddock—where the headlights first swung out from behind the trees, how Evelyn cried and ran straight to the gate, even the faint click of the lock as it released.

When you’re about to die, some memories slow down. They stretch out until they feel carved into bone.

So for the next month, I counted the days almost every morning.

On the surface, the farm settled into a routine again. In the daytime people fed the cattle, watered the vegetable beds, repaired sections of fence. In the warehouse, meals were cooked on time, supplies were handed out, inventory was checked. To anyone watching from the outside, it probably looked like a lucky group who’d found a place where life could still function.

But I knew the wrong things were already moving.

Evelyn was the clearest sign.

For that month she was quieter than she’d been before—at least on the surface. She stopped arguing with me in front of everyone. She stopped using her uncle’s name to pressure people. Sometimes she even helped hand out food, acting like she was willing to cooperate. But her eyes never stopped working. She watched the guard rotations, watched who went near the gate controls, watched when I left the warehouse, when I went to the underground entrance, when I came back out through that heavy metal door.

She thought she was hiding it well.

Twice, I deliberately stayed a few minutes longer near the warehouse entrance. Both times, she walked by as if by accident, but her eyes slid toward the underground door. The third time, she finally couldn’t hold it in and came to find me alone after dinner.

I was repairing a searchlight line when she approached with a mug of hot coffee. She set it down beside me, her voice soft.

“Kane, we need to talk.”

I didn’t look up. “Talk.”

She paused, as if choosing her words carefully. “I understand why you’re being cautious. I do. But you can’t hold every permission forever, especially for the underground level. You’re not young anymore. What if you get hurt? What if something happens to you? If nobody can even open the door, what happens to everyone then?”

I tightened the last screw, then finally looked at her.

Her expression was sincere—at least it looked that way. In my last life, that was the face that made me nod. I’d genuinely thought that if I died, someone else would need access below, so I gave her a second authorization.

“What are you asking for?” I said.

“Add my fingerprint,” she answered immediately. “Just as a backup. I’m Alexander’s family. If anything happens, someone has to be able to take responsibility.”

I watched her without speaking.

Under my stare she shifted slightly, then added, “I’m not trying to take anything from you. I just want a safeguard.”

“I’m not adding it.”

My reply was flat. Final.

She blinked. “What?”

“The underground door stays off-limits to you.” I put my tools back into the box, my tone unchanged. “If I die, people stay on the surface. That door isn’t meant for anyone to inherit.”

The warmth on her face cracked.

“So you’ve treated me like an outsider this whole time?” she said, forcing the anger down into a thin, sharp voice. “This is my uncle’s place.”

“It’s the place your uncle left to me.” I met her eyes. “And the thing you should be worrying about right now isn’t that door downstairs. It’s the fence outside.”

Her lips pressed tight. In the end she said nothing and walked away.

From that day on, she stopped asking about permissions—but she watched even harder. She was waiting. Waiting for a moment that would force everyone into a decision.

A month later, that evening still arrived.

Dusk was coming down when I was checking the lines along the west side of the paddock. Noah ran over from the warehouse, his face tight.

“There’s a vehicle at the gate.”

I looked up toward the main entrance. Headlights were already swinging out from behind the trees.

They were here.

I moved with Noah, fast. Before we even reached the gate, we heard the pounding.

The electrified current only ran through the wire fence. The gate itself was mechanical—no power.

The pounding was frantic, hammering the metal hard enough to rattle it. Outside sat a pickup so filthy its color was hard to tell, the back crowded with men. Dried blood smeared the front end. Rick stood at the gate, gray with dust, clothes torn, yelling into the yard.

“Open up! Please—open up!”

His voice was almost identical to the one I remembered.

“Something’s right behind us!” he shouted, pounding again, then dragging a man forward. “Look at him! He’s hurt bad—if you don’t open this gate, he’s dead!”

The man clutched his shoulder, half his shirt soaked red, head down as he panted. In the truck, two others played their parts—one coughing, one cursing, both repeatedly glancing back toward the treeline as if a horde would spill out any second.

A solid performance.

People inside the paddock were already gathering. A few who’d been handing out supplies near the warehouse stopped what they were doing. Two women stepped forward on instinct. A middle-aged man frowned. “Is it really that bad?”

Evelyn heard it too.

She burst out of the warehouse. The moment she saw the face at the gate, she changed completely—eyes reddening, voice shaking.

“Rick!”

Outside, Rick looked up and acted even faster than she did.

“Evelyn! Thank God—you’re in there!” He slammed his palm against the gate. “Tell them to open it! We’ve been chased all the way here. If you wait any longer, it’s over!”

That line was a spark in dry grass.

The whole yard got pulled in at once. Someone said we should ask how many were outside. Someone said we couldn’t just let people die at the gate. Someone else was already looking toward the guard post, like all they needed was permission.

Evelyn turned on me, voice tight, full of entitlement. “Open it. Now.”

I didn’t move.

She stepped closer, as if she thought I hadn’t heard. “That’s Rick. He’s not a stranger—he’s my person.”

“I know who he is,” I said.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Her voice rose. “They’re going to die out there!”

I watched Rick through the bars. While he pounded and begged, his eyes kept flicking upward, sweeping the fence line, the gate lock, the guard shack, the searchlight. A man truly cornered looks for a way out. He doesn’t study a defense system.

Last time, I hadn’t noticed.

This time, I saw it clearly.

When Evelyn realized I still wasn’t moving, she turned to the others instead and raised her voice higher.

“This is my uncle’s farm!” She pointed toward the gate. “You live here. You eat what’s here. And now people are dying outside, and you’re just going to watch? If my uncle were alive, he would never do this!”

It worked.

Several faces showed hesitation immediately. Evelyn knew exactly how to weaponize “humanity.” She knew how to wrap a selfish demand in moral language, until anyone who refused looked heartless.

Noah frowned and stepped forward. He glanced at me first; when he saw I wasn’t speaking, he turned to Evelyn.

“Don’t rush,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “We can pass water and medicine through the gate first. We can ask how many are out there. If there really is a horde behind them, opening the gate will make everything worse.”

“You don’t understand!” Evelyn practically shouted. “That’s Rick out there, not some random stranger. Making him wait outside is the same as killing him!”

Noah started to answer—

“Enough!” she snapped, cutting him off. “You don’t get to decide for me!”

As she said it, I saw Rick flash her a small hand signal from outside. It was quick, like an unconscious gesture—but I saw it.

This wasn’t a sudden loss of control.

From beginning to end, this was about the gate.

Evelyn stopped arguing with Noah. She spun and sprinted toward the gate control panel by the guard post, moving too fast for someone who was only acting on emotion—like she already knew where the switch was, where the keypad was, exactly what her hand needed to do.

Someone inside reached out to stop her, but they were too slow.

I stepped in and caught her wrist, yanking her away from the controls.

She cried out in pain and tried to reach for the panel with her other hand. I twisted once. Her arm went slack immediately, and she stumbled back.

“Are you insane?” she snapped up at me, fury in her eyes. “Let go of me!”

I didn’t argue with her. I didn’t explain.

Everyone froze.

“Kane?” Noah blinked, caught off guard.

I turned to him. “Gun up.”

Noah hesitated for half a second, then understood. He raised his weapon and aimed toward the men outside.

My voice was cold, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Anyone tries to rush in, shoot.”

The paddock went dead quiet.

People stared at me, then at Noah, unable to read what I was doing. Evelyn kept struggling, cursing me, calling me crazy, insisting I had no right to touch her.

I ignored her. With my free hand, I entered the gate code.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

The lock began to release.

Outside, Rick’s eyes lit up. He leaned forward half a step. Behind him, the others tensed, bodies coiled—like dogs waiting for a latch to slip.

The gate cracked open.

Rick lunged first.

Bang.

Noah stepped in and drove the muzzle right to the line of the opening, his voice hard. “Don’t move.”

Rick stopped with one foot at the threshold, his face changing.

And in that same instant, with my hand still locked on Evelyn’s wrist, I shoved her straight out through the opening.