Ashes of Betrayal: A Son's Revenge

My own mother left me to burn alive so she could save the neighbor's kid. My legs were crushed to dust under the burning debris because of it.

She clutched the uninjured kid to her chest. I dragged myself through a puddle of my own blood, my shattered legs trailing uselessly behind me.

She glared down at me and shrieked. "Why didn't you just run faster? You're always so damn selfish! Why can't you be a good boy like Gage for once?"

After that, I became the family's ultimate burden. Duane and Brenda handed my bedroom over to Gage without a second thought. My younger brother, Mason, snatched my Xbox.

They played the perfect, happy family. I rotted away in a cheap wheelchair.

I blink. The acrid smell of smoke fills my lungs again. I am back on the exact day of the fire.

Through the thin wood of my bedroom door, I hear Brenda's footsteps pause. She is hesitating.

I reach out.

I lock the door.

Chapter 1

The smell of smoke floods my nose. It's thick enough to choke on.

I open my eyes. The sterile white ceiling of the hospital ward is gone. In its place is the faded wallpaper of my old bedroom, rapidly turning a sickly yellow under a layer of soot.

Fire.

A wave of blistering heat crawls through the gap under the door, licking at my ankles.

I look down at my legs. They are whole. Covered in my old sweatpants, unbroken.

I can move them. I flex my toes.

Outside in the hallway, Brenda's voice cuts through the crackling flames. The sound is shrill and distorted by the smoke. "Gage! Gage, don't be afraid! I'm right here!"

Then comes the wailing of the neighbor's kid, Gage. "Save me! I'm so scared!"

Through the thin wood, I hear Brenda's footsteps pause right outside my door. It's the exact same hesitation of someone standing in the produce aisle, deciding between heads of cabbage.

In my past life, that single second of hesitation ended with her kicking down the neighbor's door instead of mine. She had clutched that uninjured kid to her chest. I had been dragging myself through a puddle of my own blood, my legs crushed beneath a collapsed, burning beam.

She had glared down at me and shrieked. "Why didn't you just run faster? You're always so damn selfish! Why can't you be a good boy like Gage for once?"

My legs were ruined. I became the family's ultimate burden. Duane and Brenda handed my bedroom straight over to Gage, claiming the poor boy was traumatized and needed space. Mason, my younger brother, snatched my Xbox and smashed it on the floor, spitting that a cripple didn't deserve to play games.

The three of them played the perfect, happy family with the outsider. I rotted away in a cheap wheelchair, staring out the window like a dying fish tossed onto the concrete.

Now, the acrid smell of smoke fills my lungs again. I hear the exact same choice being made outside my door.

I push myself off the mattress. I test the weight on my fully functioning legs, stepping barefoot onto the floorboards. I walk to the door.

Outside, Brenda is still screaming. "Gage, hang on! I'm coming to get you!"

A dry laugh escapes my throat. I press my thumb against the deadbolt. In my last life, the door had been unlocked. I grip the cold metal.

I twist it. Click.

The sound is barely a whisper against the roar of the fire. But to me, it's the loudest thing in the world.

You always wanted to know why I couldn't run fast enough, Brenda. This time, I've locked the door. Take all the time you need with your precious Gage. I'm not going anywhere.

When the firefighters finally kick the door off its hinges, I am sitting calmly at my desk. A soaked towel is pressed firmly over my nose and mouth.

They rush in through the smoke, freezing when they see me unharmed. "Kid, you"

"My mother is next door," I say. My voice is steady. "She might need some help."

The firefighters don't waste a single second. They turn and rush toward the adjacent apartment.

The burly squad leader pauses at the door. He looks back at me, his eyes wide with disbelief and raw admiration.

"Hell of a job, kid! Blocking the smoke with wet towels to save yourself in a blaze like this? You've got more brains and guts than half the adults outside screaming and blaming each other!"

A younger firefighter hauls me onto his back and carries me downstairs. Out on the street, the entire apartment complex has evacuated. The chaos is deafening. I spot Brenda immediately.

She is gripping Gage in a bone-crushing hug. The kid is buried in her chest, clean, without a single scratch on him. Duane stands right beside them, his arms crossed, a deep scowl etched onto his face.

Mason is slouched against a parked car, eyes glued to his phone screen, furiously tapping away at a game. He doesn't even bother to look up.

Brenda looks up and freezes the moment she sees me. She tightens her grip on Gage and charges toward me. "Rowen! You scared me half to death!"

She reaches out to grab me. I take a deliberate step back, letting her arms grasp empty air. Her hands hang suspended between us.

"Why why did you lock the door? Do you have any idea how worried I was?" Her voice pitches up. The fake relief instantly evaporates, replaced by sharp accusation.

I just look at her. In my last life, she stood there clutching Gage just like this, looking down at me strapped to a gurney, demanding to know why I couldn't run faster. Now, she's still clutching Gage, demanding to know why I locked my own door.

In her head, I was supposed to just take care of myself. I was supposed to step aside and be collateral damage for her savior complex.

Chapter 2

"I woke up the second I smelled the smoke. I sealed the door frame with wet towels and waited for rescue," I say, enunciating every single syllable. "I'd say that was the smartest move."

"You!" Brenda chokes on her words, her face flushing with anger.

"You ungrateful little brat! Is that how you talk to your mother?" Duane storms over. He lunges to drag me down, but the firefighter carrying me roughly shoves his arm away.

The firefighter glares at him, his voice dropping into a sharp, uncompromising warning. "Back off, sir! He's a minor who just barely made it out alive. You touch him again, and I'll have the cops here on a domestic abuse charge before you can blink!"

The firefighter drops me to my feet. I stand my ground and look Duane dead in the eye.

"There was a fire. I didn't panic. I protected myself. Is that what you call ungrateful?"

Duane freezes. He clearly didn't expect methe quiet punching bag who took every hit and insult without a wordto actually talk back.

Right on cue, Gage bursts into theatrical tears. He throws himself forward and wraps his arms around Brenda's leg. "Brenda, I'm scared! Rowen is being so mean"

Brenda drops to her knees instantly, cooing at him like he's the most precious thing in the world. "Oh, Gage, don't cry. I'm right here.

It's all Rowen's fault. He's just being difficult and scaring you."

She doesn't even glance my way. You'd think I was the arsonist. I smile. A genuine, cold smile.

Perfect. This family hasn't changed one bit. That means I won't feel a single drop of guilt for what I'm going to do next.

We arrive at the ER for routine checks. Aside from smelling like a campfire, I don't have a single scratch on me.

The ER doctor examines me, his lip curling in disgust at Brenda, who is busy coddling the neighbor's kid. He deliberately raises his voice, letting a cold scoff slip. "He's incredibly smart. Honestly, with that level of smoke, if he had actually relied on certain irresponsible guardians, he'd be in the morgue right now."

Duane just grunts, pulls out his phone, and starts scrolling through TikTok videos.

Brenda stays glued to Gage's bedside. The kid claims he's traumatized and keeps up a relentless stream of fake crying. Brenda peels an apple for him one minute and reads him a story the next. Her voice drips with sickening sweetness.

My brother, Mason, slumps in the corner. He's wearing his headset, screaming a barrage of profanities into the mic like a typical Xbox trash-talker.

Nobody pays any attention to me. Fine by me. I close my eyes and start mapping out my next moves.

I am not going to live like a pathetic joke again. I'm going to take back everything that belongs to me. No, I want more than that. I'm going to make them pay for every single thing they did to me.

A nurse walks over. Her voice is soft. "Rowen, right? How are you feeling?"

I open my eyes. She's young, a surgical mask covering most of her face, leaving only a pair of bright, attentive eyes visible. "I'm good, thanks."

"You were very brave." She swaps out my IV bag. "The firefighters told me how calm you stayed in there."

I don't answer.

"Your mom" She hesitates before finishing the thought. "seems a lot more concerned about the boy in the next bed."

I let out a dry chuckle. "He probably looks like he needs it more."

The nurse shoots me a sympathetic look. She doesn't say anything else, just finishes checking my vitals and walks away.

A few minutes later, Gage's parents, Howard and Annette, burst into the ER, breathless and frantic.

The second they hit the ward, they start showering Brenda with endless gratitude. "Brenda! Thank you so much! You literally saved our Gage's life!"

"If it weren't for you I can't even imagine!" Annette chokes up, wiping away her tears.

Brenda waves them off. "Oh, it was nothing. Anyone would have done the same," she says, but her face glows with the sick satisfaction of being validated and adored.

"Honestly, I should be the one apologizing." Brenda lets out a heavy sigh and shoots a pointed glare in my direction.

"My Rowen, I don't know what got into him, but he locked his door. If I had gone to him first, I would have wasted so much time banging on the wood. I definitely wouldn't have made it to Gage in time."

In just a few words, she wipes her hands clean of abandoning her own son, effortlessly slapping a "selfish brat" label onto my forehead.

Chapter 3

Howard immediately chimes in. "Oh, you know how kids are. They just don't know any better.

Not like our Gage. He's timid, sure, but he listens."

I listen to them bounce excuses off each other. I almost want to clap.

In my last life, these exact words nailed me to the cross. Everyone praised Brenda's heroic sacrifice, claiming she delayed saving her own flesh and blood for the neighbor's kid. Everyone told me I deserved my crushed legs because I didn't run fast enough.

Now, they are doing it all over again.

I slowly sit up. I lock eyes with them and finally speak. "Howard. Annette."

I don't raise my voice, but the ward instantly goes dead silent. Every pair of eyes snaps to me.

I throw off the thin hospital blanket. I swing my legs out of bed and walk right up to them. "Brenda saving Gage is a fact. But me locking my door, sealing it with a wet towel, and waiting for rescue during a raging fire is also a fact."

I turn to Brenda. I make sure she hears every single syllable. "You taught me to stay calm and protect myself in an emergency.

I did exactly that. So tell me, since when did saving my own life make me the villain?"

Brenda's face flushes a dark, ugly purple. "You ungrateful little brat! Is that how you talk to us?"

Duane is the first to snap. He slams his phone shut, jumps to his feet, and shoves his finger inches from my face.

"Your mother just walked out of a burning building! You don't ask how she is, and you stand there talking back?" he roars, trying to use his sheer volume to establish his authority in front of the nurses and other patients.

"Duane," I snap my head toward him. My voice is ice. "When the firefighter pulled me out of that building, did you ask me a single question? No.

You were either glued to your screen or lighting a cigarette. Now you want to play the protective father?"

Duane's jaw drops. Not a single sound comes out. His sallow, smoke-stained face twitches, the color draining away. "You"

"Enough!" Brenda shrieks, cutting him off. She glares at me, her eyes practically shooting sparks. "Rowen!

Do you think you're untouchable now? You think you can just talk to us like this? We raised you! We didn't feed and clothe you just to have you throw it all back in our faces!"

"I'm just stating the facts." I hold her gaze. "Or do the facts just make you look pathetic?"

"You little!"

The temperature in the room plummets to freezing. Howard and Annette stand awkwardly on the sidelines, glancing between me and my parents.

Howard, the ultimate people-pleaser, steps in to do damage control. "Whoa, let's calm down. Duane, Brenda, the kid isn't entirely wrong.

Rowen stayed incredibly calm. That's a good thing. A really good thing."

He forces a stiff smile in my direction. "Rowen, your parents were just worried sick about you. Things got a little heated, that's all. Don't take it to heart."

I ignore him completely. I keep my eyes dead on Brenda. "Let me ask you something, Brenda.

If Gage and I swapped places today If you ran to my door first and found it locked, what would you have done?"

All the color instantly drains from Brenda's face.

What would she have done? She would have abandoned me without a second thought to grab the kid behind the unlocked door. Just like she did in my last life.

The question slices right through her sickening disguise of a selfless, heroic mother. She stares at me. Her lips tremble. "I I"

"She would have saved you both!" Duane roars. He's tossing her a lifeline, but it sounds like he's desperately trying to convince himself.

"Really?" I let out a sharp laugh. "It was a raging fire. One second makes the difference between breathing and burning to a crisp.

What, do you think Brenda's got superpowers? That she can walk through fire and be in two places at once?"

The entire ER goes dead silent.

The only sound is Mason's game blasting from the corner, obnoxiously loud. "Nice! Triple kill!"

Duane's face crumples in humiliation. He storms over and kicks the leg of Mason's chair. "Games!

That's all you do! Your brother almost burned to death and you're playing a damn game!"

Mason flinches hard, nearly dropping his phone.

Chapter 4

Mason looks up, rolling his eyes in annoyance. "What are you yelling for? He's fine, isn't he? Jesus, you're ruining my rank."

He dropped his head and went back to mashing buttons on his screen.

I looked at my family.

One was a hypocrite, one was a coward, and one was selfish.

Perfect. Fucking perfect.

I turned around, walked back to my hospital bed, lay down, and pulled the covers up to my chest. "I'm tired. Do whatever you want."

Behind me, I heard Howard and Annette making awkward excuses to leave, Duane's heavy, suppressed breathing, and Brenda's erratic gasps.

From today on, this family was permanently shattered.

And this was just the beginning.

We got discharged and went home. The air in the apartment is thicker and more suffocating than the smell of bleach at the hospital.

The second we walked through the door, Brenda kicked a pair of house slippers at my feet. "Put them on."

She spun around and stormed into the kitchen. Pots and pans crashed against the counters.

Duane tossed his car keys onto the shoe rack. He dropped onto the sofa, his face dark, without saying a single word. Mason had already sprinted to his room and slammed his door shut.

I took my time stepping into the slippers and walked into the living room.

A massive fruit basket sat on the coffee table. Next to it was a thick, unsealed envelope.

It was a thank-you gift from Gage's parents.

I walked over and picked up the envelope. I weighed it in my hand. It was heavy.

In my past life, Brenda took the cash straight out of this envelope and bought Gage a brand-new PlayStation to "calm his nerves." Meanwhile, Mason snatched my old console, claiming a cripple didn't need to play games anyway.

I gripped the envelope and walked to the kitchen entrance.

She was hacking at the ribs on the cutting board. Whack. Whack. She swung the cleaver like she was trying to sever someone's bones.

"Mom."

She froze, but she didn't turn around.

"What are you planning to do with this money?" I tapped the envelope against my palm.

"What do you mean? That's a thank-you gift from Howard and Annette! I'll spend it however the hell I want!" she yelled at the wall.

"Is that so?" I ripped the envelope open and pulled out a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills. A quick glance told me it was at least a couple of grand.

"They're thanking you because you saved Gage. But while you were saving him, I was trapped in the exact same fire. I'm your actual son, and I almost burned alive. Don't I get a cut for emotional damages?"

Brenda whipped around. Bits of raw meat still clung to the edge of her cleaver. She stared at me like I was a mutant.

"Rowen! Have you lost your damn mind? They gave that to me!"

"You talk about losing minds." I nodded slowly, shoving the bills back into the envelope one by one. "You care so much about looking good, you'd rather treat the neighbor's kid like gold and leave your own son to burn. You care about looking good, so you'll pocket this blood money and sleep fine at night."

I stepped right into her personal space and shoved the envelope hard into her apron pocket. "You know, sometimes I really wonder if I'm even your biological kid."

Brenda trembled all over. I stepped right up, grabbed the bowl of pork rib soup she had so carefully simmered for Gage, and dumped it straight down the sink.

Listening to the greasy broth swirl down the drain, I said coldly, "If you care so much about your pride, then stop using our family's money to feed someone else's dog."

I walked back to my room and shut the door.

Outside, I heard her muffled crying and Duane's impatient grumbling. "Stop crying! This is your fault for spoiling him! Now he thinks he owns the place, and we can't control him!"

"My fault? Do you have any conscience, Duane? I broke my back for this family"

The arguing. The crying.

I listened to this exact soundtrack for ten years in my last life. Every single argument used to feel like a physical blow to the stomach.

Now, it was just white noise.

I pulled open my desk drawer and dragged out a small metal lockbox from the very back.

Inside was all the birthday money and allowance I had saved up since I was a kid. It wasn't much, around three grand.

But it was my first chunk of seed money.

I booted up my computer and logged onto an interface I knew like the back of my hand.

Sitting in a wheelchair for a decade in my past life, my only escape was obsessively studying the stock market and crypto trends. I never had the capital to actually trade, but those charts, those fluctuating lines and algorithms, were permanently burned into my brain.

Chapter 5

The year was 2014.

An era where the streets were paved with gold, crawling with naive fish waiting to be gutted in the early crypto and stock booms.

And I am a ghost from the future, standing right behind them with a knife.

I stared at the green crypto trendline just beginning to spike on my monitor. A slow, dark smile stretched across my face.

Brenda, Duane, Mason, Gage

Your "perfect lives" are just getting started.

The next day was Monday.

I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked into first period just like any other day.

The second I stepped through the classroom door, the air shifted.

Every single pair of eyes pinned onto me. The stares were heavy, buzzing with weird, toxic energy.

My desk partner, a heavyset kid named Dustin, leaned over the moment I sat down. He dropped his voice to a loud whisper. "Rowen, your apartment building caught fire?"

"Yeah."

"I heard your mom dragged the neighbor's kid out first?" he pressed, his eyes practically gleaming with gossip.

Before I could even open my mouth, a shrill voice pierced through the room from the back row.

"That's not even half of it! My mom told me his mom literally abandoned him in the fire to save the neighbor's kid!

And because he got lucky and didn't die, he threw a massive tantrum at the hospital and blamed his own mother for it. What a toxic, ungrateful brat!"

It was Harper. She was on the student council, but she was better known as the biggest loudmouth in our entire subdivision.

Her parents worked in the same corporate office as Duane and Brenda. I didn't need to guess who fed them that twisted sob story.

The classroom instantly erupted.

"Are you serious? What a psychopath."

"Yikes. I mean, why would his mom save an outsider first, though?"

"You just don't get it. It's called sacrificing for the greater good. It's totally heroic!"

The whispers and sneers hit me from all sides.

It played out exactly like this in my last life.

I became the laughingstock of the entire high school. The pathetic loser whose own mother didn't want him, who still had the nerve to act ungrateful.

Harper was still going, spit practically flying from her lips. "If you ask me, a son like that needs to be locked up! Zero gratitude!"

I slowly turned my head. I locked eyes with her. "Harper."

My tone was flat, but Harper's jaw snapped shut like a chicken getting its neck wrung.

The entire class went dead silent. Everyone stared at us.

"You just said my mother 'sacrificed for the greater good,' that she was completely heroic, right?"

"O-Of course she is!" Harper jutted her chin out, trying to look tough.

"Good." I nodded. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, unlocked it, and hit the bright red record button on the voice memo app.

"Then say it again. Say it louder. Let everyone hear exactly what a magnificent mother Brenda is."

Harper froze. "What are you doing?"

"I'm recording," I said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Such a touching story needs to be documented. I'm going to post it in the subdivision's private Facebook groups and put it on TikTok.

I already have the caption mapped out: 'The Most Selfless Mother of the Year: Abandons Biological Son in Raging Fire Just to Impress the Neighbors.' Then, I'll set up a GoFundMe.

Let's see if the internet donates to this heroic mother, or if they doxx her and cancel her into total social ruin right on the spot."

I didn't raise my voice, but every single syllable sliced through the dead air of the classroom. "What do you think? Does that headline grab enough attention? Does it truly capture her utter selflessness?"

Harper's face flushed bright red, drained to a sickly white, and finally settled on a terrifying shade of pale green.

She wasn't stupid.

She knew this kind of garbage worked as juicy suburban drama behind closed doors.

But the second it hit the public feed, the narrative flipped.

A mother leaving her own flesh and blood to burnno matter how she spun itwas unforgivable in the eyes of the public.

"I I didn't mean it like that" she stammered.

"Then how did you mean it?" I took a step closer. "Are you saying my mother was wrong? Or are you admitting you have no business running your mouth about someone else's trauma?"

"I" Tears welled up in Harper's eyes. She cast a desperate, pleading look around the room.

But the same classmates who were just cheering her on suddenly found the floor tiles fascinating. Every single one of them dropped their heads, aggressively pretending to read their textbooks.

"Harper." I tapped the screen, stopped the recording, and stood over her, staring down at her pathetic, shrinking frame.

Chapter 6

"Watch your mouth. Or next time, the star of the recording won't be Brenda. It'll be you."

I turn my back on her and drop into my seat.

The entire classroom goes dead silent. The afternoon sun streams through the window, hitting my face. It feels incredibly warm.

After school, I don't go straight home. With the three grand from my lockbox tucked safely in my pocket, I head to the public library a few blocks away. I find a public computer tucked in the farthest corner. Avoiding the librarian's line of sight, I plug in my flash drive.

I quickly bring up a crypto exchange website.

It's 2014. Bitcoin just suffered a massive crash, plummeting from a high of over a thousand dollars to a pathetic three hundred. Every expert out there thinks the bubble has officially burst.

But I know the truth. This is just the ground floor. In the near future, it's going to skyrocket straight to the moon.

I dump all three thousand dollars into it.

After securing the transaction, I don't leave. Instead, I open a blank document and start typing.

In my past life, confined to a wheelchair, my only escape was reading serialized web novels. Eventually, I started writing them myself.

I had serialized a few fantasy werewolf romance novels on a fiction app. They actually blew up. The paid subscriptions from readers kept me from starving in the streets.

Although I eventually had to stop updating due to my deteriorating health, every single plot point and character arc is still crystal clear in my head.

Now, I have a healthy body and a ten-year head start on the entire industry. It's an absolute goldmine.

I need to make money, but I also need to build my own empire. I can't rely solely on crypto.

I type out the first word. The ideas flood in like a breached dam. The plot twists I could only dream of, the endings I never had the physical strength to finishthey all pour out of me, transforming into reality with every clack of the keyboard.

By the time I finish the first chapter and hit save, the sun has set. I stretch my arms over my head. My entire body feels electric.

I walk through the front door of the apartment.

Brenda and Duane are sitting stiffly on the sofa. Their faces are dark enough to summon a thunderstorm. Right next to them sit Howard and Annette, along with their precious little Gage.

My school jacketthe one I wore this morningis laid out on the coffee table. It has a tiny tear on the sleeve from catching a piece of debris during the fire.

"Rowen, get over here." Brenda's voice is pure ice.

I walk toward them.

Brenda screams and raises her hand, swinging it toward my face.

I don't even flinch. I snatch her wrist right in mid-air, gripping it so hard the bones grind. I shove her back. She stumbles, nearly losing her balance.

"If you don't want to spend the night in a jail cell, you'd better keep your hands off me," I warn, my voice dropping to a dead calm.

"You animal!" Brenda points a shaking finger at me, trembling from head to toe. "How dare you even show your face here?!"

I know exactly what this is. The main event has started.

"Brenda, please don't get so angry. He's just a kid" Annette chimes in from the side, her voice dripping with fake sympathy.

"A kid? He's old enough to ruin my reputation all over town!" Brenda stabs her finger toward the jacket on the table.

"Gage came home and told me the entire school is talking about how I abandoned my own flesh and blood to save him! Rowen, did you spread that? Have you been running your ungrateful mouth spreading lies about me?!"

Gage ducks behind Annette. He peeks his head out and shoots me a smug, sickening grin.

It instantly clicks. This little rat is the one who snitched about my confrontation with Harper. He obviously exaggerated the whole thing, twisting my threat in the classroom into an active smear campaign. What a perfect little manipulator.

"I said it," I admit, not batting an eye.

Brenda clearly didn't expect me to own up to it so easily. She chokes on her next breath, practically suffocating on her own rage. "You you actually admit it?!"

"Why wouldn't I?" I hold her gaze. "Wasn't it the truth?

You saved him first. I was just an afterthought, wasn't I?"

"I only did that because"

Chapter 7

"You were making a choice." I cut her off. "You chose him, not me.

That is a fact. Does it matter where I say it or how I say it?"

"You're asking for it!" Duane roars, his face twisting in rage as he lunges at me with his fist raised. I grab the glass water pitcher from the coffee table and smash it against the edge. It shatters with a deafening crash.

I grip the jagged, broken neck of the pitcher and point it directly at his face. I let out a cold laugh. "You touch me today, and I promise you, you won't just lose your promotionyou'll spend the next few years rotting in a cell for child abuse."

Howard breaks into a cold sweat and lunges forward, desperately wrapping his arms around Duane to hold him back. "Duane