The tour bus carrying my mother-in-law and son overturned on a winding mountain road. The entire vehicle was caught on a tree, dangling precariously over a cliff, ready to plummet at any moment. My husband, Mark, was the captain of the nearest rescue squad. But when the police called for aid, they discovered he’d taken his entire team off-duty to attend his old flame’s son’s school competition. In my last life, I had to beg a friend to physically drag him from that school to save our family. But because his old flame’s son didn’t win first place, she felt humiliated and cut ties with him completely. Mark was also fired from the rescue squad for his dereliction of duty. After my mother-in-law and son were discharged from the hospital, he tied me and my friend up and threw us from that same cliff. “If it weren’t for you,” he’d screamed, “I wouldn’t have lost everything!” This time, his old flame’s son won his first-place trophy. But this time, Mark would never smile again. 1 The piercing wail of sirens sliced through the air. A sharp, urgent rapping on my car window startled me. “Ma’am, have you called for rescue?” A jolt shot through me. I turned, staring blankly at the scene before me, the chaos slowly registering. It took a moment to realize what had happened. I had been reborn. In my previous life, my mother-in-law had forgotten her scarf and called for me to bring it to her. By the time I arrived, the tour bus had already left. She told me to just follow them in my car. Then, chaos. I never knew what happened, but the bus ahead of me suddenly swerved, lost control, and plunged off the side of the mountain. I had frantically called my husband, Mark, but he’d hung up on me with an irritated sigh. I’d then called the official emergency line, only to be told that Mark had taken his entire squad off the clock to attend an event at his old flame Evelyn’s son’s school. The police officer’s voice pulled me back to the present. My hand tightened on my phone. The phantom pain of my own bones shattering on the rocks below still lingered. Seeing my stunned silence, the officer must have thought I was in shock. He pulled out his own phone and made the call right in front of me. He received the exact same answer I had in my past life. Just then, my phone rang, a desperate, tinny sound. It was my mother-in-law. “Claire! You have to save me and Leo! My battery is about to die! Call Mark, tell him to come save us!” The officer leaned in. “You have family on that bus?” “Yes,” I said, my voice shaking. “My mother-in-law and my son. My husband is Mark, the captain of the local rescue squad.” “Then call him! Now! We’ll contact other units in the meantime.” I dialed Mark’s number, the officer watching me intently. It rang for a long time before he finally picked up. His voice, the one I had come to despise, crackled through the speaker. “Didn’t I tell you not to call me? I’m cheering for Zac right now!” “Mark, the bus Mom and Leo were on went off a cliff,” I said, my voice tight with urgency. “It’s caught on a tree, but it won’t hold for long. You have to come now!” Suddenly, another voice took over the line—Evelyn’s. “Claire, please, have a heart. Zac doesn’t have a father. It means so much to him to have Mark and his team here, cheering him on. Please don’t make him leave. I don’t want to ruin this for my son.” She continued, her voice taking on a martyred tone. “I know you’ve always been insecure about our past, but I promised you I would never interfere with your family. You don’t have to lie like this to get him to leave. If it makes you feel better, I’ll never contact him again after today.” Her voice broke into a sob. Mark snatched the phone back, his voice thick with rage. “You’d use my own mother and son to lie? Are you even human, Claire? The more you act like this, the less I ever want to come back to that house! I’m warning you, don’t bother me again today!” He was about to hang up when the officer took the phone from my hand. “This is Officer Miller with the Westbrook Police Department. Your wife is not lying. The situation here is critical. I’ve already contacted your squad’s dispatch, and they confirmed your entire unit is off-site. I need you and your team back here immediately. There are thirty-four lives hanging in the balance!” But the phone only erupted in a chorus of jeers from Mark’s men. “Who is this guy?” one of them slurred. “I know people at Westbrook PD. Never heard of an Officer Miller.” “Yeah, Captain’s on a pretty short leash at home,” another chimed in. “Can’t you give the guy a break? And making up a story is one thing, but why call the squad? You trying to get us all in trouble?” Even Officer Miller’s face flushed with anger at their blatant disrespect. I leaned in and whispered to him, “Please, just call another unit. That bus doesn’t have much time.” In my last life, they hadn’t believed me either. The school was close, so I had called my friend Nathan, who worked nearby. He had rushed over and found the principal, forcing Mark and his team to return. But in the end, that act of kindness had only gotten both of us killed. This time, I wouldn’t drag an innocent person down with me. But Mark had overheard my whisper. His voice turned venomous. “Enough, Claire! Who else are you going to drag into this? I know every firefighter and rescue worker in a fifty-mile radius. You dare call any of them, and I swear, I’ll show you what happens to liars!” 2 He slammed the phone down. Officer Miller was livid. “I don’t believe this. Does this guy think he’s some kind of king, that a mere squad captain can just ignore a direct order?” He started furiously dialing numbers on his own phone. I sighed. The sad truth was, Mark did have that kind of influence. He’d worked at nearly every fire station in the area. He could never get promoted, so he’d finally jumped ship when the new rescue squad offered him a captaincy right out of the gate. “It’s better to call a team from further away,” I urged. “We’re running out of time.” I knew from my past life that the bus, including rescue time, had held on for exactly forty minutes before it fell. Even with Mark’s team arriving relatively quickly back then, half the passengers had still plunged to their deaths. They could have saved everyone. But because his mother and son were at the back of the bus, he’d recklessly focused on them first. His actions unbalanced the vehicle, snapping a crucial branch and accelerating its fall. This time, even without his interference, the bus had an hour at most. A team from the next county would take about forty minutes to get here. It was tight, but at least some lives could be saved. As if on cue, my phone rang again. It was Kevin, one of Mark’s former colleagues and a frequent dinner guest at our house. “Claire, you’re putting me in a tough spot,” he said, his voice wheedling. “You and Mark shouldn’t let your little fights get this big.” “Dispatch just assigned us the call, and then Mark called me personally. You know, filing a false police report is a serious offense. You’re wasting emergency resources.” Officer Miller snatched the phone, furious. “I am the one who called dispatch. This is Officer Miller from the Westbrook PD—” Kevin cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, save it. Mark told me about you. There’s no Miller at Westbrook. Tell Claire to stop the theatrics. I’m doing her a favor here. I already had the alert cancelled for her.” 3 My mother-in-law called again. The background was filled with screams of terror. “Help us! Did you call Mark or not?” “I did, Mom. He’s not coming.” A torrent of abuse erupted from the phone. “You useless waste of space! I told Mark he never should have married you! You can’t even do one simple thing right!” Then, my son Leo’s voice, sharp and cruel. “Mom, why are you so useless? If Mommy Evelyn were here, she would have made Dad come save us by now!” Tears streamed down my face, hot and immediate. This was the family I had poured my heart and soul into maintaining. A husband who only had eyes for his old flame, a mother-in-law who despised my very existence, and a son—a son who had been turned against me, who called another woman ‘Mommy.’ My mother-in-law had always preferred Evelyn, the gentle, domestic type. I was a media executive, a career woman who had to network and meet clients. I couldn't be like Evelyn, revolving my entire life around Mark. But for years, I was the one who paid for the house, the cars, every single expense. I made sure they had the best of everything, and in return, I received not a single shred of gratitude. I had wanted to make it work, to hold our family together. When my mother-in-law was bedridden after a surgery, I took a long leave of absence to be her full-time caregiver, handling everything from her meals to her bedpan. Her attitude had just started to soften when Evelyn reappeared with a son in tow. My mother-in-law not only rented an apartment for them in our neighborhood but also insisted they come to our house for meals every single day. Evelyn won my son over with junk food and cheap toys, turning him against me to the point where, for a long time, he called her ‘Mommy’ and referred to me only by my first name. Mark had taken our entire life savings and used it to buy Evelyn and her son a large house. “Don’t overthink it, Claire,” he’d said. “I owe this to her. As my wife, you should share this burden with me.” I was furious, but for the sake of a love I thought was real, for the memory of our first three happy years together, I had endured it. I never imagined my endurance would cost me my life. Suddenly, a rock flew through the air and struck my forehead. A warm trickle of blood ran down my face. Several other family members of the passengers had arrived, and they were throwing whatever they could find at me. “My mother is on that bus! She called me and said your husband is the rescue captain! Why isn't he here?” “He has no right to abandon his post! This is negligent homicide! If my mom dies, I’ll make sure your whole family pays!” Clutching my bleeding head, I scrambled back into my car and tried to video call Mark. He declined it instantly and sent a text. “Stop your games! Do you want a divorce? Is that it?” Then, he blocked me. I tried his teammates. I tried Evelyn. One by one, I found myself blocked by all of them. I called my mother-in-law’s number again. It went straight to voicemail. Her phone was dead. It seems fate has made its decision, I thought, a cold resignation washing over me. I’ve done all I can. 4 The chaos outside intensified. Someone screamed, “It’s slipping! The bus is slipping! It’s not going to hold!” Despite the hatred churning in my gut, I couldn’t bear to watch all those innocent people die. I rushed out of the car and looked down at the horrifying scene. As a last resort, I called Nathan. Before I could even speak, his voice came through, urgent and breathless. “I’m almost there! I’ve got a chopper! Just hold on!” I was stunned, but he hung up before I could ask any questions. Moments later, a helicopter appeared in the distance, flying directly over the teetering bus. Nathan was the first one to rappel down, beginning the rescue. I could see his equipment wasn’t standard-issue, and someone in the helicopter was frantically giving him hand signals. But his presence was a beacon of hope for everyone. I heard my mother-in-law screaming from a window at the back of the bus. “Save me first! Are you deaf? I’m an old woman! Save me!” But I also heard the commander in the helicopter shouting to Nathan, “Follow my instructions, or you’ll send everyone plunging to their deaths!” The process was slow, but Nathan was calm and methodical, bringing people up one by one. We all stood on the roadside, holding our breath for him. Twenty minutes later, the roar of more helicopters filled the sky. The professional rescue teams had finally arrived. Tears of relief streamed down my face. The other families were embracing, sobbing with joy. “They’re saved! They’re saved!” I glanced at my phone. My heart lurched. There were only twenty minutes left before the bus would fall. In my past life, only two helicopters had come, and with Mark’s reckless interference, many hadn’t been saved. But this time, with so many rescuers, maybe twenty minutes would be enough. I stared at my phone, the timer on the screen a torturous countdown. With five minutes left, everyone had been rescued except for my mother-in-law and Leo, who were at the very back of the bus. A rescuer lowered a harness to them, instructing her to secure herself and Leo. But my mother-in-law threw a fit. “What kind of terrible service is this? You expect us to do it ourselves? Stop wasting time and get down here and strap us in! What if we do it wrong and fall? Will you take responsibility then?” The bus was tilted at such a precarious angle that the weight of one more person would send it over the edge. The rescuer pleaded with her, but she refused to listen, arguing relentlessly. As they argued, the countdown on my phone hit zero.
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