On the way home during the holidays, my fiance's sister-in-law, Pamela Kensington, brings out an electric pot that requires 2,000 watts in order to function so that she can cook some meatballs.

"The sockets in the electric car are meant for us to use, no? If we can't have hot food during our trips, then what's the use of having an electric car in the first place?"

My fiance, Mason Vance, who is driving, doesn't bother to stop Pamela. Instead, he helps her fill up the pot with water while smiling.

In my previous life, I had strictly stopped them from cooking meatballs and told them that we didn't have enough power left in the electric car. If they were to cook the meatballs, the car would stop in the middle of the journey, and we wouldn't be able to make it home.

Pamela, who tagged along for the ride, thought that I refused to let her son have a piping hot meal, so she began criticizing me.

Mason, on the other hand, thought that I was being too much of a busybody. He slapped me in front of everyone before pushing me out of the car.

I was frozen to the bone in the blizzard as I watched everyone else leave me behind happily. In the end, I died from hypothermia.

When I woke up again, I realized I'd returned to the moment when Pamela is about to plug the electric pot into the socket.

This time, I hand her a power strip. "Go ahead and use this power strip. It can channel more power for your meatballs to cook quickly."

The indicator light flicked on.

The 2,000-watt electric pot hummed loudly. In the cramped car cabin, the heavy scent of the creamy meatball soup filled the air.

Under normal circumstances, it might have felt like a warm, homely scene. But on a deserted highway in the middle of nowhere, it was practically a death warrant.

I leaned back in the passenger seat and scanned the dashboard. The remaining driving range was dropping at a visibly alarming rate.

"See? Raine knows what she's doing. This power strip works great!"

My fiance's sister-in-law, Pamela Kensington, sat in the back seat and grinned smugly as she tossed meatballs into the pot. Beside her, her spoiled ten-year-old son, Toby Vance, was banging his silverware.

"I want meat! Hurry up and cook!"

In the driver's seat, Mason Vance, my fiance, glanced at them through the rearview mirror with a doting smile.

"Raine, see? This is how it should've been from the start. Family trips are supposed to be about making memories and being happy."

A cold smile curled on my lips, and I didn't answer.

In my past life, this exact scene had played out. We were on the highway, caught in a blizzard that forced the road to close down. The temperature plummeted to well below the freezing point.

Pamela insisted on cooking hot food in the car, and I desperately fought to stop them.

I earnestly explained that electric cars drained their battery quickly in extreme cold, and the remaining power was our only source of heat. It was our lifeline. But they wouldn't listen.

Pamela called me a drama queen and accused me of wanting to starve her child.

Desperate to look like the big provider in front of his family, Mason slapped me across the face, calling me selfish and heartless. They kicked me out of the car, leaving me in the blizzard, and said I had to be taught a lesson.

Dressed only in a thin coat, I pounded on the windows and begged for mercy, but they locked the doors.

While devouring their meal, they watched as my body slowly lost warmth until I froze to death, becoming a corpse in the snow.

In my past life, they managed to hold out until rescue arrived because they saved the food meant for me and had gained a little more space in the car.

As for me, I became the unfortunate woman in the news who supposedly froze to death after leaving the car in an angry fit.

Now that I was reborn, I wouldn't be a fool trying to wake them from their foolish thinking. I was going to watch them swallow their poison.

"Ugh! Why is the pot taking so long to get hot?" Pamela complained impatiently as she poked at the half-raw meatballs.

"Raine, could you turn off the heating in the car? It's fighting the pot for power."

Mason instinctively reached out to turn off the heat.

History was repeating itself.

In my past life, they'd turned off the heater and warmed themselves entirely with the steam from the pot so that they could cook meatballs. But once the meal was over and the pot went cold, the car turned into a tomb of ice without heating.

I pulled the thick wool coat tighter around me. It was the thickest piece I owned, and I'd made sure to put it on before getting in the car.

"Go ahead," I said calmly. "Focus all power on the burner so it'll cook faster."

Mason froze. His hands hovered over the screen as he looked at me with a flash of genuine surprise in his eyes.

Mason immediately turned to Pamela in delight.

"Look, Pamela. Raine's finally learned to behave. She did what you said and turned everything off."

The soft hum of the vent died, and the rush of warm air from the heater ceased. A thin layer of frost began forming on the car windows, visible to the naked eye.

Icy air slipped through the tiny gaps in the doors.

I lowered my gaze and slid a hand into my bag. After tearing the packaging of two heat patches, I slipped one against my lower back and the other over my stomach.

If they were all so eager for hot food, they should enjoy this bit of warmth while it lasted.

On the dashboard, the battery percentage had plummeted from 40% to 25%.

Outside, the snow changed from fine grains to heavy, wet flakes that slammed against the windshield. The line of stalled cars ahead of us stretched endlessly.

Here on the empty highway, we were in the middle of nowhere, far from any town or rest shelter. The real, deadly cold was about to hit.

"They're ready! Eat up!"

Pamela scooped up a steaming meatball and stuffed it straight into Toby's mouth. He yelped from the heat, puffing out hot air while shouting about how amazing it tasted.

The car was filled with the smell of scorched garlic and greasy meat.

I felt the first real shiver. Even though I had heat patches, the phantom memory of hypothermia was still lodged in my marrow.

I picked up my thermal flask and took a sip of hot liquid. It was black tea I had brewed before we hit the highway.

I gripped the flask tightly, leeching every bit of thermal energy from the metal.

"Raine, what's in your flask? Give Toby a sip. The meatball is too salty." Pamela's sharp eyes were instantly locked on the thermal flask in my hands.

I immediately tightened the cap and looked coldly into the rearview mirror. "It's black tea. It's bitter, so the kid won't like it."

"Black tea's great! It warms the body!" Pamela insisted. "Who cares if it's bitter? We'll just mix it with some bottled water. Hand it over."

Mason chimed in from the driver's seat. "Don't be so petty, Raine. He's thirsty."

Deep down, I let out a cold laugh.

In my past life, they took my water and thought it was disgusting that I had drunk from it, so they used it to wash their greasy dishes.

"There's bottled water in the door compartment," I said, pointing at the car door.

"That's cold!" Pamela shrieked. "Are you trying to freeze the Vances' only heir to death?"

"So you do know it's cold," I snapped back. "Who was it that just told us to turn off the heat?"

Pamela choked on her words for a second before slamming her fork into the pot. "Mason! Look at your fiance! She hasn't even married you yet, and this is how she treats us. What will happen after the wedding? Is she going to bar me from your house entirely?"

Mason's expression darkened as he glared at me. "Hand it over, Raine! It's just a cup of tea. Is it really worth a fight?"

"It is," I said, looking him calmly in the eye. "This is the last of my hot tea."

"You have that case of milk in the trunk, don't you?" he asking, raising his voice. "Get it out and heat it up for Toby!"

Anger flared in my gut. That milk was a gift I'd bought for my parents for the holidays.

In my past life, the Vances ripped open every carton and used it as water for the damned soup. In the end, they never left me a single drop.

"The trunk won't open. It's frozen shut," I casually lied.

"Who are you trying to fool?"

Pamela refused to believe a single word I said. She shoved Toby and said, "Go on. Tell her to take out the milk."

As a ten-year-old boy, Toby was at the age where kids were nothing but trouble. He reached through the gap between the seats and grabbed for my bag, trying to snatch my thermal flask.

"Give it to me! I want some!"

I shifted to the side to dodge him, but his fingernails raked across the back of my hand and left a red mark.

"Ow! She hit me!"

When he failed, he immediately pulled his hand back and started bawling loudly.

Pamela immediately bristled like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on.

"Raine! You heartless bitch! How dare you hit a child?"

Her hands were slick with grease and broth as she lunged from the backseat and clawed at my hair.

I quickly unbuckled my seatbelt and shifted aside to dodge her, my eyes coldly locking onto hers. "Are you trying to flip this car? The road's iced over!"

That stopped Mason cold. He instinctively slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded slightly on the slick road. The soup in the pot splashed out and stained the leather seats, leaving a greasy mess.

"Enough!" Mason yelled, then turned to glare at me.

"Raine, apologize to Pamela!"

I looked at him and felt thoroughly disgusted. This was the man I once thought I could spend the rest of my life with, but when faced with life and death, his stupidity and weakness were more lethal than the blizzard outside.

I took a deep breath and suppressed the urge to slap him hard in the face. After glancing out the door at the howling wind and snowstorm, I quietly said, "It looks like we'll be spending the night in the car."

On the dashboard, the battery icon flashed red and showed less than 15% remaining.

…

When night fell, the blizzard swallowed everything. The temperature in the car had dropped well below the freezing point.

The meatballs in the pot were long gone. All that remained was a disgusting layer of congealed fat.

Toby was curled up asleep in the backseat, wrapped in Mason's down jacket, while Pamela shivered uncontrollably.

"Why is it so cold…" she chattered. "Mason, turn on the heat!"

Mason tried pressing the start button several times, but the screen flickered once before going completely dark.

"I-it's dead…" His voice trembled.

"What? It was fine while we were cooking!" Pamela shrieked.

"The electric pot pulled too much power, and the cold reduces the battery capacity… Now, the battery's completely flat," he explained, running his hands through his hair in frustration.

Heavy silence fell over the car.

I leaned back against the seat and felt the warmth of my heat patches beginning to fade. Deep down, I was eerily calm.

I thought about how Mason and I had started out. Back then, he was a struggling student, while I was at the top of my class.

I felt sorry for him when I saw him eating plain bread in the cafeteria, so I bought extra meals and pretended I couldn't finish them just to give him food.

I made the down payment on his first car and bought designer clothes for him with money I'd scrimped and saved. With my resources, money, and love, I packaged him into a respectable urban white-collar professional.

But deep down, he was the same country bumpkin who only obeyed Pamela and had no true sense of responsibility.

During my final moments in my past life, I heard him say to Pamela, "Now that Raine's dead, her insurance payout is going to be enough to get us a bigger apartment."

In that moment, all my love turned into the hatred of a vengeful ghost.

…

I snapped back into the present just in time to see Pamela pointing at me and shouting, "This is all Raine's fault! If she hadn't brought that electric pot into the car, we wouldn't have cooked and run out of battery!"

I almost laughed. Whenever something went wrong, it was always someone else's fault.

"Did I tell you to cook?" I coldly retorted. "You were the one who insisted on hot food."

"Were you dead or what? Couldn't you have stopped us? You just wanted us dead from the start!" Pamela snapped back. She was being completely irrational.

Mason turned to look at me, too. His eyes were full of pure resentment.

"Why weren't you more insistent, Raine? You should've known the battery wouldn't last. But there's no point talking about it now. We need to stay warm, or we'll freeze to death tonight," he said, rubbing his hands together.

Pamela's eyes darted around before they landed on me. "The three of us can huddle together for warmth, but the car's too small. Four people will use up the oxygen too quickly too.

"Raine's in great shape. She ran a marathon, didn't she? She should go out, check the road, and maybe find a rescue vehicle. If she can find help, we're all saved."

I knew they would use the excuse that I was a fitness enthusiast who was tough enough to handle the cold to send me out to scout ahead. But I hadn't thought they'd be this ruthless.