Apocalypse Rebirth: Making Billions With My Fortune-Telling Skill

​April sat back, her jaw tightening beneath her mask. She had a strict daily limit of five predictions before her Eye of Destiny skill hit its daily limit.

It still hadn’t upgraded even now so she assumed that it would not need just ten readings like the last time to upgrade, but rather twenty.

She didn’t know how close she was to twenty readings but it should be close. Due to this, she decided to save her fifth and final slot exclusively for Emily.

​When a fifth customer tried to push through the curtain—a wealthy merchant waving his black card like a trophy—April lifted her hand, her voice icy cold.

​”We are closed for the night,” April flatly stated.

​”What? But the sign says five slots! You’ve only taken four!” the man complained, looking at the guards.

​”I said, we are closed,” April repeated, her tone leaving zero room for argument. The enforcers immediately stepped in, escorting the disgruntled merchant out of the alleyway.

​April stayed in her seat. She didn’t pack up her orb and she didn’t leave.

​She waited.

​11:30 PM. 11:45 PM. 11:55 PM.

​The alleyway outside grew quiet as the crowds dispersed, leaving only Nat’s heavy security detail standing guard in the dim light.

​April’s thumb dug hard into the side of her index finger. In both of her lives, she had never been this impatient. She had never waited for anyone. She had never felt this level of desperate expectation for another human being to show up. Her final moments were an exception, of course.

​The velvet curtain parted, and Nat walked into the stall. His dark shades were pulled down slightly, his eyes scanning her solitary figure behind the empty table.

​”The doppelgänger didn’t show?” Nat asked, leaning against the wooden frame.

​April’s dark eyes flashed with a cold, desperate light through the slits of her mask. ”You know, she said her mother was dying from something unknown... so she was desperate. I don’t think she would throw away an opportunity just for the fun of it.”

She recalled how Emily talked about her step mother punishing her. ​She remembered the terrified look on her face when her watch hit 11:30 PM.

Something suddenly felt wrong.

She didn’t know this woman to heart but someone with that much desperation in her eyes would not make a promise and then fail. What if her stepmother indeed punished her and that punishment was keeping her from coming?

A terrible feeling. April had a terrible feeling and it was tightening in her chest, like it wanted to choke her.

​”Nat,” April called out, her voice cutting sharply through the stall. ”I need your help.” Maybe she should’ve done this sooner and not respected the other woman’s boundaries.

​Nat raised a single brow. It was extraordinarily rare for his ”sweetheart” to ask him for anything, let alone address him with such raw urgency. ”What is it?”

​”Track that woman down for me,” April demanded flatly. ”Find out where she lives.”

​Nat let out a faint, amused hum, shifting his posture. ”Right now? It’s almost midnight, sweetheart.”

​”Can it be done?” April asked, leaning forward over the table, her dark eyes locking onto his.

​Nat’s face slowly split into a broad, dangerous smirk, his eyes flashing with lethal confidence under the torchlight.

​”There is nothing I cannot find in this city, sweetheart,” Nat said softly. He turned toward the alleyway and snapped his fingers sharply. ”Boys. We’re going hunting.”

As Nat stepped out to issue directives, his voice carried easily through the gap in the velvet curtain, crisp and commanding.

​”Pull up the surveillance grids for the upper sector entrance from last night between eleven and twelve midnight,” Nat ordered his second-in-command, his tone dropping all traces of humor. ”Cross-reference the physical parameters with the local registry under the name Gabriel. I want an address, estate layout, and active guard rosters in under ten minutes.”

​Inside the quiet stall, April remained seated behind her table, her hand slowly coming up to rest against her chest.

​The knot tightening behind her ribs was like a quiet, suffocating dread that felt entirely foreign to her.

In her past life, the only time she had ever felt this kind of agonizing anticipation was during her final moments, staring at the desolate streets, waiting for her teammates to come back, quietly at first and then agonizingly. She cried, she yelled, she screamed and begged... hoping someone would come. She was desperate to live but the desperation from back then and now felt entirely different.

Since coming back to the past, she had learned never to wait on anyone with her life on the line. Waiting like that meant giving up her safety. It meant handing the control of her survival over to an external variable.

​I should have held on to her yesterday, April thought, her thumb digging harder into her knuckle until the skin turned stark white beneath her glove. I should have ignored her boundaries and her fears, held her back by thirty more minutes and extracted the data by force instead of letting her run back into that cage. Now, waiting while I don’t know what’s going on or if something has happened to her just makes me feel uneasy.

If her system allowed her to see people’s fortunes when they were not in front of her, she would’ve already done so but it doesn’t work that way. She tried it before and it just didn’t.

​The curtain pulled back, and Nat leaned his head inside, tossing a small digital drive onto her table.

​”Got the location, sweetheart,” Nat said, his eyes gleaming with lethal assurance. ”Secluded manor on the eastern edge of the upper district. Registered under Victor Gabriel. The perimeter security is light, but they’ve got private guards at the gates.”

​April stood up in a single, fluid motion, undoing the tie that kept her black mask to her face and tossing it onto the chair. Her eyes were dark, devoid of panic, replaced by an icy, terrifying focus.

​”Let’s head there now,” April flatly stated. ”And break the gates if you have to. Something is definitely going on in that manor.”

​Nat’s smirk widened into a sharp, dangerous blade. ”I like the way you think.”