"Ivy! I'm talking to you. Zoning out again?"

A voice--familiar, cold, sharp enough to grind against her teeth.

Ivy's eyes flew open. Light hit her like something solid, her pupils snapping shut against it, the world around her breaking apart into fragments--warm orange light, the low hum of voices, a man's mouth opening and closing, the words not yet reaching her.

Where was she? Was she dead? Was this hell, or something else entirely?

Then she felt it. Her hands moved on their own, searching for something to steady herself, and found instead the round, taut curve of her own stomach.

She went rigid. Beneath her palm, something was beating--faint, rhythmic, unmistakably alive.

She took in the room around her. Warm orange light. The beige couch she'd slept on a hundred times. The family photo on the wall. All of it told her the same thing: this was her home. Her living room. The place she'd just been thrown out of.

And there, in front of her, was a face twisted with irritation, lips still moving.

Adrian. The same man who'd stood silent at that door while their daughters screamed, who'd sat in a room filled with Jake's laughter and let it all happen.

She stared at his mouth as it opened and closed, and the memory surged back, precise as a key sliding into a lock. She knew exactly what he was about to say.

Her own lips moved without her permission--barely a whisper, half a beat ahead of him.

"Ivy, you need to sign the house over to me. It's too dangerous out there. Only a man can protect this family."

"Ivy, you need to sign the house over to me. It's too dangerous out there. Only a man can protect this family."

The two voices overlapped perfectly, word for word, not a syllable out of place. The silence that followed was heavy enough to steal the breath from her lungs.

Something in Ivy--something that had been frozen solid since the moment she opened her eyes--came roaring back to life. It was real. Someone, something, had heard her. Heard the broken words she'd screamed into the dark.

She was back. Fifteen days before the apocalypse. Before the virus. Before the screams she knew she'd hear for the rest of her life, however long that turned out to be.

Aria. Layla. Were they here? Alive, somewhere in this house, right now?

She needed to find them. Hold them. Tell them nothing could ever hurt them again. This time would be different. She would burn the world down before she let history repeat itself.

She started to rise from the couch, but a voice cut through her thoughts before she could--not her own, but something clear, flat, edged with an electronic hum, like a notification from a system she'd never signed up for.

Ding!

{Hello, Host. Welcome back.}

Every muscle in Ivy's body locked. The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "Who are you?"

What answered instead was a sharp jolt of pain across her belly.

Thump!

A toy car had slammed straight into her stomach. She sucked in a breath, both arms flying up to shield the bump, the strange voice shoved to the back of her mind.

"Were you even listening to my dad?"

Jake stood three feet away, wearing that particular twist of self-importance only a child raised to believe he was the center of the universe could manage. "My dad's talking to you. It's rude not to listen when he's speaking."

But not this time. Not ever again. Ivy's voice came out low and sharp, her eyes locked on his. "Jake Brooks. Listen carefully. If you touch me or my daughters again--once, just once--I promise you, you'll regret the day you were born."

Silence fell over the room instantly. One sentence was all it took for everyone to understand: this wasn't the Ivy they knew anymore. This one was something a little frightening.

Adrian stepped forward immediately, pulling Jake behind him. "Ivy, have you lost your mind? He's ten years old. What's wrong with you?"

Maya wrapped an arm around Jake, playing the devastated mother to perfection, her other hand resting on her own swollen belly--she was pregnant too, Ivy remembered, with her second child. "Ivy, he was just trying to get your attention. You can't talk to a child like that."

Ivy nearly laughed out loud.

A child? The same one who'd called her daughters "dead weight," who'd suggested feeding them to monsters and laughed while he said it?

Before she could respond, a small, fierce voice cut through the tension. "Don't you dare hurt my mom!"

Ivy turned and finally heard the sound she'd been aching for--Layla, running down the stairs, shaking but resolute, small fists raised as she planted herself in front of Ivy. A second later Aria joined her, chin lifted. "Jake, you need to apologize. You can't treat my mom like that."

They were here. Standing right in front of her, alive. That was all that mattered--there was still time.

Ivy dropped to her knees without a second thought and pulled both girls into her arms, unable to say anything at all. She just held them, trying to carve this moment into her bones, repeating the only words she could manage. "My babies. My babies."

Last time, I couldn't save you. This time, nothing will touch you. The words she couldn't say out loud, she said in her heart instead.

Maya, watching all of this closely, seized her moment--her voice softening on cue. "Jake, your sisters are right. Go apologize." Then, turning to the girls, honey-sweet. "Aria, Layla, you're such good girls. Come here--Jake has candy for you..."

But that trick had already stopped working. Ivy rose quickly, planting herself directly in Maya's path, cutting straight to the point. "You can have the house. But I have one condition."

Her eyes flicked to the calendar on the wall. The countdown had already begun--fifteen days until the apocalypse, nineteen until her due date. Everything needed to be settled fast.

"I'll sell it to you for five hundred thousand dollars. In exchange, Adrian signs the divorce papers. Today."

Adrian's eyes went wide, his voice stumbling. "Ivy... what are you talking about?"

But it was Maya's reaction that gave everything away--a flash of naked hunger, there and gone in an instant. She'd waited years for this, and now Ivy was simply handing it over, asking for nothing but an easy exit and half the house's real value.

"Mom..." Aria's voice was small. "Are you and Dad splitting up?"

Layla clutched at Ivy's hand. "What happens to us? Where will we go?"

Ivy knelt to meet their eyes. "You're coming with me. Trust me. I'll take care of you."

This time, I won't break that promise.

"Okay! Layla and I trust you, Mom." Aria took her sister's other hand, her eyes steady.

That trust nearly cracked something open in Ivy's chest. Her daughters--not even ten years old, with no idea what lay ahead--had chosen to believe her anyway. Nothing had ever meant more.

She pulled them both in tighter than she ever had before.

Adrian, finally shaking off his shock, let out a scornful laugh. "You're about to give birth. Three kids, no money, no plan. You actually think you can handle this on your own?"

Ivy let the moment settle before she answered, her voice calm. "Save it. This is your only chance. Answer now, or I take you to court, the offer's off the table, and you're the ones getting thrown out of my house."

"You--" Adrian wasn't remotely prepared for this version of her. He looked ready to combust.

Maya didn't hesitate for a second. She was already reaching for the papers. "We accept. Adrian, sign. Now."

Jake nodded eagerly. "Yeah! Dad, just sign it! Then it'll just be us! This'll be our house!"

Adrian's eyes moved between Maya, Jake, and Ivy, confusion and unease creeping into his expression. She wasn't the woman he'd spent years learning to control anymore. After all this time, she'd become herself again--proud, unshakeable, radiant.