PrologueMariella
I’ve dreamed of my death every night since I was seven years old.
I tried to explain the dreams to my mother—the volatile tension twisting through my body, and the cold shadows slithering beneath my skin. But there were no words for a terror so consuming it stole the breath from my lungs and left me paralyzed. She’d find me perched on the top stair of our porch, slick with sweat, stammering about being so small I was scared I might disappear.
“It’s only a nightmare, Mari,” my mother would whisper through the darkness, rocking me against her chest as electrical current licked my fingertips. “Everyone gets them.”
The strange symptoms peaked when I was twelve. This time, my mother wasn’t there to reassure me, and I soon learned the other girls at boarding school weren’t like me. They didn’t wake at night screaming, bodies scalding, electricity whipping through their limbs.
My isolation worsened after my mother died, but when I was seventeen it stopped. I finished school and found medication that made everything—the nightmares, the paranoia, and the symptoms—go away, smothering my oddities like a weighted blanket.
At seventeen, my life began.
1Mariella
“Ella, wait up.” Anna’s high-pitched voice carries across Harvard Yard. Her hot pink dress billows as she leaps over a puddle with the elegance of a dancer, rather than a freshman psychology student in platform wedges. Passing students turn their heads before hurrying to their morning classes.
I double back to meet her, the college’s imposing sandstone buildings towering over me. Craning my neck, I trace the slabs of windows, each reflecting a sliver of the sky’s miserable, stony gray.
“Good morning,” I say, stifling a yawn. “Love the dress.”
“Thanks,” she says, shifting onto the tips of her wedges to smack a lip-glossed kiss on my cheek. “I’ll forgive you for making me chase you across the lawn. I was calling you forages.”
I groan. “Feels like I’m still half asleep.” I don’t mention my pills, or that I took them too late last night. My savior medication, designed to stop my paranoia, vivid nightmares, and waking with strange electrical tingling in my limbs. I shouldn’t complain, even if they do dampen my senses and memories. They’re working, but the sedative side effects have been… an adjustment.
“Lucky you have me.” Anna bats her false lashes and hands me a coffee.
“You’re the best.” I wrap my hands around the cup and take a sip. “Ugh, how much sugar is in this?”
“Whoops. Sorry, that’s mine,” she says, swapping the cups around. We mosey forward, each gust of wind pushing us along as if to mock our measured pace.
“I forgot to tell you,” Anna says, “they announced the date for the psychology ball last night.” Her sandy blonde hair bobs as she hops over another puddle. “We’ll get ready together at my place with the girls. I can’t wait!” She lifts her shoulders and squeals, then nudges me with her elbow. “Why aren’t you shrieking like a teen at a boy-band concert?”
“Anna.” Her name comes out with an exhale.
“Nope.” She lifts her manicured hand in front of my face. “You promised. You’re not getting out of this.”
Ididpromise. But that was…before.Silas’s stormy gaze flashes across my mind, eliciting an ache deep in my chest. “You know balls aren’t my thing.”
“That’s what she said.” She quirks a brow at me, and I try to muster a smile. Her glossy lips pull down into a frown. “Is this because of the police officer?”
“You don’t need me anymore.”
I push Silas’s words away. Leaves flutter to the ground around us, bathing the yard in vivid hues of crimson, burnt orange and golden-brown. At a distance, it must look like the yard is on fire. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Anna exhales. “Ella, I agree it was a bad… situationship, but you broke up months ago.”
“We never dated,” I remind her.
“Exactly. It’s time to move on. You should try this newdating app,” she says, pulling her phone from her dress pocket. “Look. I matched with the new guy from work this morning.” She flashes me a profile picture of a blond man. Every inch of his skin is covered in dark ink, multiple piercings hanging from his ears and nose.
“His name is Christiaan,” Anna says. “Hot, right?”
I study the man’s tongue, pressed against his teeth to profile the silver ball of his tongue piercing.
Anna’s green gaze narrows. “What?”
I pinch my lips together to suppress a grin. “Nothing. It’s just—” I gesture to her phone. “I’ve never understood why people do things like that.”
