They Killed Me to Save Their "Chosen One", Big Mistake
The last thing I remembered was the glint of my own kitchen knife, the one I used to chop vegetables for my daughter’s lunch.
It was buried deep in my stomach.
The first thing I heard in my second life was my mother-in-law, Judith, talking about salvation.
“Maren, look at this,” she said, her voice raspy with an excitement that always made my skin crawl. “Rhonda recommended this specialist. A genius! He has this divine medicine!”
I blinked, the phantom pain in my abdomen so real it made me gasp.
I was on my own couch, in my own condo. The afternoon sun was streaming through the window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
Alive. I was alive.
Judith shoved her phone in my face. On the screen was a gaudy advertisement for a vial of shimmering liquid.
“A miracle cure that can prevent cancer,” she crowed. “A hundred and fifty thousand dollars isn't expensive for that, is it?”
“And since you can’t give us a son,” she continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “you should at least contribute something to protect our family’s sacred bloodline.”
I knew this day. I knew this conversation.
This was the day the nightmare began.
In my first life, I knew it was a scam. I refused. I pleaded with her, with my husband Gavin, to see reason.
But Judith was a force of nature, a hurricane of feudal beliefs in a modern world.
“You barren woman!” she had shrieked, her face contorted. “You want to extinguish the Lynch family line! I might as well be dead!”
She had made our lives a living hell.
And Gavin… my gentle, kind Gavin, had eventually buckled under the pressure.
“Honey,” he had said, his eyes pleading, “just to get her to stop… for the sake of harmony… let’s just sell the condo and give her the money?”
“She’s old, she doesn’t have many years left. Let’s just consider it an act of filial piety.”
Filial piety. Harmony.
Those words were poison.
My refusal had sealed my fate.
When my nephew Jaden was later diagnosed with liver cancer, a result of his own debauched lifestyle, they all blamed me.
His parents, Brody and Sheryl, their faces twisted with grief and rage, backed me into my own kitchen.
“If you had just sold the condo back then,” Brody had snarled, his breath hot with whiskey, “my son would have had money, a better life! He wouldn't be dying!”
They believed their own insanity.
They believed I was the one who had killed their precious golden boy.
And with the same knife I used to cut my daughter's sandwiches, they made me pay.
Now, as I stared at Judith’s triumphant face, the phantom pain in my gut was replaced by a cold, sharp clarity.
I was back.
And this time, harmony was the last thing on my mind.
This time, I was going to give them exactly what they wanted.
And it would lead them straight to hell.
§01
“Oh, Judith,” I said, my voice carefully calibrated to sound weary and accommodating. “A miracle cure? It sounds… incredible.”
I saw a flicker of surprise in her eyes. She had come armed for a battle, and I had just lowered my shield.
My brother-in-law, Brody, and his wife, Sheryl, stood by the doorway, pretending to be indifferent. They were vultures, waiting for the kill.
Their son, Jaden, a hulking sixteen-year-old, was already raiding my fridge like a starved wolf.
“Incredible is an understatement,” Judith puffed up, sensing an easy victory. “This is about securing the future of our bloodline. Jaden is the Vessel. We must protect him.”
The Vessel.
That’s what their insane little cult, The Covenant of the Seed, called him. The chosen one destined to lead their lineage to glory.
My daughter, Felicity, in their eyes, was a genetic dead end.
“Well, Mom, that’s just terrible timing,” I said, sighing dramatically.
I leaned back into the plush cushions of the couch, a stage for my performance.
“The thing is… I’ve already sold the condo.”
The words hung in the air, electric.
Judith’s jaw dropped. Brody and Sheryl froze, their masks of indifference shattering.
“WHAT?” Judith’s voice cracked, a shriek piercing the quiet afternoon. “You… you wasteful shrew! A perfectly good home, and you just sold it?”
“Your home?” I asked, raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. My voice was laced with a sweetness that was pure acid.
“This condo was a wedding gift from my parents, Judith. The deed has always been in my name alone.”
“Legally, it’s my pre-nuptial property. My asset to manage. I haven’t wasted a single penny of *your* family’s money.”
I let the legal terms land like hammer blows.
She was momentarily stunned, but her programming was too deep. She reverted to her default setting: emotional terrorism.
“I don’t care about the law!” she wailed, clutching her chest. “You married into our family! What’s yours is ours! You couldn’t produce a son, so you owe us! You owe Jaden this medicine!”
I almost laughed. The audacity was breathtaking.
“When Gavin and I got married, your family didn’t contribute a dime, yet you’ve lived here rent-free on weekends,” I said, my voice turning cold. “You seemed quite happy with that arrangement then.”
“It’s a neat trick, isn’t it? Playing the victim while living off others. Did you think if you stayed long enough, the property would just magically become yours? Are you done pretending now, Judith?”
I leaned forward.
“People can’t have it both ways. If you want to play these manipulative games with me, then I’ll play too. We can escalate this. We can talk about divorce. Let’s see who’s left with nothing.”
The word “divorce” was a silver bullet.
But the real kill shot was my final sentence.
“And once this all comes out, I wonder… how secure will Gavin’s stable, respectable job at the Pioneer County Assessor’s Office be?”
Judith’s face went white.
Her two points of pride in life were having two sons, and her younger son having a secure government job.
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