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.

Mason's eyes lit up as if he'd just found a lifeline. "That's right, Raine! You're athletic, so go ahead and see if there are any snowplows. There's bound to be a rest shelter, so walk there and bring back help."

"I'm not going," I said without hesitation. "It's at least 12 miles to the nearest rest shelter. Besides, it's minus four degrees Fahrenheit out there, so going out means death."

"How could you be so selfish?" Pamela burst into angry curses. "Is your comfort more important than the lives of everyone in this car?"

"Exactly," Mason added. "We're a family, so someone has to make a little sacrifice."

He began unbuckling his seatbelt to make his move. "Listen, Raine. This is for the greater good. If you won't go, don't blame me for not showing mercy."

He reached for the door lock.

"I'm not getting out of this car!" I gripped the armrest for dear life.

"That's not up to you!"

Pamela lunged forward from the back seat and grabbed my collar. Her hands, calloused from years of farm work, clamped around my neck.

"You ungrateful bitch! Get out of the car!"

Toby woke up from the shouting. When he saw the adults fighting, he began shouting excitedly from the back seat, "Throw her out! Throw her out!"

When Mason took the chance to open the passenger door, a blast of wind and snow roared into the car.

"Don't make me do this, Raine. If you step out yourself, you can at least keep a little dignity," he said darkly.

I looked at him and felt my final hope toward him die, but I was also completely clear-headed.

"Mason, if you dare throw me out, we're done."

"So be it!" Pamela answered for him. "The Vance family doesn't need a woman like you, who doesn't see the bigger picture anyway!"

She gave me a hard shove. I lost my balance with half my body tipping out of the car.

Mason took the chance to unbuckle my seat belt and give my shoulder another vicious shove before I tumbled into the snow.

"My coat!"

I tried to scramble up, but Pamela was faster. She snatched the hem of my coat and declared, "This coat is warm, so Toby can use it!"

She was trying to strip it off me!

"Let go!" I desperately struggled, kicking out at her wrist with my boot.

"Ow! She kicked me, Mason! She's attacking me!" Pamela screeched like a slaughtered pig. "She pinched Toby earlier, and now she's hitting me!"

In truth, Toby wasn't hurt at all, but he was clever enough to clutch his stomach and howl dramatically. "Ow, my tummy hurts! Raine kicked my tummy!"

Completely enraged, Mason hopped out of the driver's seat and kicked me hard in the back. "You're vicious! How dare you hit a child and an older woman?"

Searing pain shot through my side. I collapsed face-first into the snow with ice crystals filling my mouth.

Mason brutally ripped the wool coat off me and tossed it back to Pamela in the car. Underneath, I wore nothing but a thin thermal base layer, and the wind cut through the fabric.

"Take her tea too!" Pamela yelled from inside the car.

Mason bent down again and yanked the thermal flask hanging around my neck.

"Mason… you'll regret this…" My teeth chattered as I trembled violently.

"Agreeing to marry a cold-blooded monster like you is theonly thing I regret most," he spat, then turned and got into the car.

When the door slammed shut with a bang, I saw Pamela through the window, grinning smugly as she raised her middle finger at me.

They wrapped my coat around Toby before the three of them huddled together for warmth, while I was abandoned in the white, freezing hell.

My body heat was rapidly draining away, and my consciousness started to fade.

I couldn't die. In this life, I wouldn't die before they did.

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to stand.

In the distance, two beams of blinding light pierced through the snowy darkness before a modified off-road vehicle plowed through the snow and headed straight toward me.