Brittany composed herself. She took a deep breath, smoothing her hair, wiping the blood from her cheek with the back of her hand. The shock in her eyes was gone, replaced by a cold, reptilian malice.

She walked over to where Chelsea lay on the floor. Chelsea was staring at the dust under the bed, unable to move her head. She saw Brittany's shoes-red soles-plant themselves inches from her nose. Brittany stepped on Chelsea's hand, grinding her heel into her fingers.

Chelsea didn't feel it. Her nerves were already dead.

"You think that matters?" Brittany hissed. She leaned down, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "You think a slap changes anything? You're dying in a motel room, Chelsea. Alone. Unloved."

She paused, waiting for a reaction Chelsea couldn't give.

"I have one more secret," she said. "A parting gift. You remember the car crash? The one that killed your father and crippled your mother's career?"

Chelsea's heart gave a strange, fluttering skip. Her eyes locked onto Brittany's ankles.

"It wasn't an accident," she said simply. "I cut the brake line. I was sixteen, Chelsea. And I did it with a pair of garden shears."

The world stopped.

Her father. Her kind, gentle father who used to read her stories. The crash that had turned her mother into a recluse. It wasn't bad luck. It wasn't fate.

It was Brittany.

Grief, massive and suffocating, crashed over Chelsea. It was heavier than the death creeping into her limbs. A single tear, hot and bloody, leaked from the corner of her eye and tracked across the bridge of her nose.

"He screamed," Brittany whispered. "I heard the recording from the dashcam before the police destroyed it. He screamed your name."

She stepped back, satisfied. "Go to hell, Chelsea."

She turned and walked to the door. The latch clicked.

Chelsea was alone.

She tried to scream. She tried to beg the universe for a second chance. Not like this. Please, God, not like this. Let her fix it. Let her kill Brittany. Let her save them.

The darkness rushed in. It wasn't a fade to black. It was a violent shuttering. Her heart gave one final, agonizing thump.

And then... silence.

A high-pitched ringing noise began to build. It started as a whine and grew into a roar, like a jet engine inside her skull.

Then came the falling sensation. She was plummeting, wind rushing past her ears, her stomach lurching into her throat.

She gasped.

Air flooded her lungs-too much air, too fast. She sat bolt upright, her chest heaving.

"No!" she screamed, her hands flying to her throat, expecting to feel the burning of the poison.

But there was no pain. Her skin was cool. Her throat was clear.

She was drenched in sweat, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She looked around wildly.

This wasn't the motel.

The walls were painted a soft, creamy yellow. Sunlight-bright, clean morning sunlight-streamed through sheer lace curtains. There were posters on the wall. A framed print for a recent, critically acclaimed indie film. A concert poster from The 1975.

Her hands. She looked at her hands.

They weren't the skeletal, trembling claws of a forty-three-year-old addict. They were smooth. The skin was taut. Her fingernails were short and unpainted, but healthy.

She scrambled out of bed. Her legs were strong. They didn't buckle. She ran to the full-length mirror hanging on the closet door.

She stopped dead.

The girl in the mirror was eighteen. Her hair was thick and glossy, cascading over her shoulders. Her face was full of collagen, her eyes bright and clear, devoid of the dark circles that had haunted her for decades.

She touched her cheek. Real. Warm.

Her gaze drifted to the desk. A sleek laptop hummed in the corner. Next to it was a paper desk calendar.

September 15, 2024.

Her knees gave out, and she sank onto the plush carpet. 2024. Her senior year at Crestview Academy.

"Chelsea! Breakfast is ready! Don't make me come up there!"

The voice floated up the stairs. It was warm, slightly exasperated, and utterly familiar.

Mom.

Earlene.

Her mother, who in her memories had died a broken, silent woman.

Tears burst from her eyes, hot and fast. She slapped her thigh hard. Slap. It stung.

It wasn't a dream.

The memories of the future-the Krav Maga training she did for that action movie role in 2030, the eidetic memory exercises she mastered to memorize scripts, the years of suffering-they were all there, layered over the mind of an eighteen-year-old girl.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. The confusion in her eyes hardened into something steel-sharp.

She looked at her reflection again. The innocent girl was gone.

"I'm coming, Mom," she whispered.

Then she looked at the calendar again. November 8th. The date of the crash. She had time.

"This time," she said to the empty room, her voice low and dangerous, "I'm the one who holds the shears."

Chelsea took the stairs two at a time, her feet finding the rhythm of the treads that she hadn't walked in twenty-five years. The smell of bacon and maple syrup grew stronger with every step, a sensory assault that made her knees weak.

She burst into the kitchen.

Her father, George, was sitting at the round oak table, a newspaper spread out in front of him. He looked younger, his hair still peppered with black, his shoulders broad and unbent by grief. Her mother stood by the stove, flipping pancakes, her silhouette bathed in the morning light.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Dad mumbled without looking up.

Chelsea didn't speak. She crossed the room in three strides and wrapped her arms around her mother from behind. She buried her face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of vanilla and laundry detergent.

Her mother stiffened in surprise, then laughed softly. "Whoa, careful! You'll make me drop the spatula."

Chelsea squeezed tighter, feeling the solid reality of her. She was alive. She was warm.

"I love you," Chelsea said, her voice thick. "I love you so much."

Mom turned around, concern knitting her brows. She pressed a hand to Chelsea's forehead. "You okay, Chels? Bad dream?"

"The worst," Chelsea said, forcing a smile. She turned to Dad and hugged him too, burying her face in his flannel shirt. He smelled like Old Spice and coffee. She wanted to stay in this kitchen forever. She wanted to lock the doors and never leave.

But she had work to do.

Chelsea ate breakfast mechanically, her mind racing. When Dad offered to drive her to school, she shook her head. "I'll take the bus. I need to... review some notes."

She needed space. She needed to calibrate.

The bus ride was a blur of noise and teenage angst, but it gave her time to settle into her skin. When the bus hissed to a halt in front of Crestview Academy, she took a deep breath.

The school was a fortress of red brick and ivy, a monument to old money and pretension. Students milled about the courtyard, a sea of navy blue blazers and plaid skirts.

And then she saw it.

A bright red convertible pulled into the reserved parking spot closest to the entrance. The vanity plate read B-POTTS.

Brittany.

She hopped out of the car, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder. She looked radiant. Perfect. Innocent.

She was surrounded instantly by her court-girls who wanted to be her, boys who wanted to date her.

Chelsea stood by the bus stop, watching her. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. The urge to walk over there and snap Brittany's neck was so strong it made her vision vibrate. Patience, she told herself. You are a predator now. Predators wait.

Brittany spotted her. Her face lit up with that trademark smile-the one that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Chelsea!" she squealed.

She ran over, her heels clicking on the pavement. She threw her arms around Chelsea.

Chelsea's body went rigid. Every instinct screamed danger. It took every ounce of her acting training to not shove Brittany away. She could feel the ghost of the poison burning in her throat.

"Hey," Chelsea said. Her voice sounded flat, but Brittany didn't notice.

Brittany pulled back, linking her arm through Chelsea's. "You didn't text me back last night! I was spiraling. Bennet was being so weird."

She was dragging Chelsea toward the entrance, her grip tight on her arm. It wasn't affectionate; it was controlling.

"Sorry," Chelsea said, putting on the mask. She widened her eyes, softened her jaw. She became the Chelsea Brittany knew-the doormat. "I fell asleep early. Headache."

Brittany rolled her eyes, but she bought it. "Ugh, you and your headaches. Anyway, we have a plan for lunch. I need you to look at my Yale essay. It's tragic."

"Yale?" Chelsea asked, playing dumb.

"Yes, Yale. The deadline is Friday. And you know I can't write to save my life." She squeezed Chelsea's arm, her nails digging in slightly. "Bennet says smart girls are sexy, but let's be real, I don't need to be smart if I have you."

Bennet says.

Chelsea almost laughed. The audacity.

"Sure," she said. "I'll look at it."

"Look at it? Babe, I need you to fix it. Rewrite it. Whatever." She checked her reflection in a window they passed. "Oh, and don't forget, you're doing my history presentation too."

They reached the main doors. The bell rang, a shrill sound that echoed through the courtyard.

"I have to go to my locker," Chelsea said, gently extricating her arm from Brittany's grip. "I'll catch up."

Brittany paused, looking at Chelsea. For a second, a flicker of suspicion crossed her face. Usually, Chelsea would cling to her like a limpet.

"Okay..." she said slowly. "Don't be late. We sit at the round table today."

She turned and sashayed into the building.

Chelsea watched her go, the smile dropping from her face instantly. Her expression went cold.

She walked into the building, passing the large bulletin board in the hallway. Mid-Term Rankings.

She scanned the list. Her name was at number 50. Right in the middle. Exactly where she had kept herself so she wouldn't outshine Brittany, who was miraculously at number 10 (thanks to Chelsea's work).

She touched the glass over her name.

"Not anymore," she whispered.

Lunchtime. The cafeteria was a zoo, but Brittany had cornered Chelsea in the hallway outside the library before she could even smell the pizza.

She shoved a sheaf of papers into Chelsea's chest.

"Here," she said. "The prompt is 'Overcoming Adversity.' I need it to sound deep, but not pathetic. You know?"

"Adversity?" Chelsea asked, raising an eyebrow. "Brittany, the hardest thing you've ever had to do was choose between the Range Rover and the Porsche for your sixteenth birthday."

Brittany glared at her. "That was actually really stressful, Chelsea. Just write it. Please? For me?"

She batted her eyelashes. The manipulation was so clumsy, so obvious. How had Chelsea never seen it before?

"Fine," Chelsea said, taking the papers. Her mind was already dissecting the prompt. She could write a Pulitzer-worthy essay in her sleep. And maybe she would. Or maybe she'd write one that was subtly, destructively terrible.

"You're the best!" Brittany blew her a kiss and strutted off toward the cafeteria.

Chelsea sighed and turned toward the auditorium. She needed quiet.

The auditorium was dim and cool. The smell of dust and floor wax hung in the air. A few students from the stage crew were up on the catwalks, adjusting lights for the upcoming fall play.

She sat in a seat about halfway down the center aisle, spreading the papers out.

Down near the stage, a boy was walking. Rory Lane. He was carrying a stack of textbooks that reached his chin. He was the quintessential nerd-thick glasses, suspenders, the whole package. Chelsea remembered him. He became a tech billionaire in her timeline, inventing some revolutionary AI chip. Right now, he was just the kid everyone tripped in the hallway.

Creak. Scccrrrape.

A sound from above. The grating noise of metal on metal. It was a sound she knew intimately from years on film sets. It was the sound of failing rigging.

She looked up. High above the stage, a heavy spotlight was swinging loose. A safety cable wasn't just snapped-it was slowly, audibly unraveling.

"Watch out!" someone yelled from the catwalk.

Rory looked up, freezing like a deer in headlights. He stumbled back, tripping over his own feet, and fell flat on his back. The books scattered.

The last thread of the cable gave way with a loud snap. The light fixture detached completely. It plummeted, a fifty-pound metal missile aiming straight for Rory's chest.

The scream caught in everyone's throat.

Chelsea didn't think.

The world slowed down. It was the adrenaline state-the "Zone" she had learned to access during her stunt training. She calculated the trajectory, the angle of descent, her required velocity.

She launched herself from the seat.

She was a blur, a streak of navy blue and plaid moving down the aisle. She vaulted over the orchestra pit railing, landing in a crouch on the polished wood of the stage.

Rory was just lying there, eyes wide behind his glasses, watching death fall toward him.

Chelsea dove.

It was a textbook Krav Maga evasion tackle. She hit Rory low, wrapping her arms around his waist. Momentum carried them both sideways. They rolled-one, two rotations-across the stage floor.

CRASH.

The spotlight smashed into the floorboards exactly where Rory's head had been a second ago. Glass shattered, spraying everywhere. Metal twisted. The impact shook the floor.

Dust billowed up in a cloud.

Silence. Absolute silence.

Chelsea lay on top of Rory, breathing hard. Her heart was steady, though. Controlled.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Rory stared up at her. His glasses were askew. He looked like he was looking at an alien. Or an angel.

"I... I think so," he squeaked.

Chelsea pushed herself up, brushing glass shards off her blazer. She checked him quickly-pupils equal, no bleeding. "You're fine. Just shock."

The students on the catwalk were shouting now, scrambling down ladders. The doors to the auditorium burst open as a teacher ran in.

Chelsea realized her mistake.

She had just executed a maneuver that belonged on a movie set, not in a high school auditorium. The "clumsy, invisible Chelsea" mask was shattered.

She quickly slumped her shoulders. She put a hand to her chest and forced her breathing to become erratic. She widened her eyes, feigning panic.

"Oh my god," she gasped, helping Rory up. "I just... I saw it falling and I just ran. I was so scared!"

Rory adjusted his glasses. He looked at the smashed light, then at Chelsea. There was a calculation in his eyes that belonged to a future genius.

"You moved really fast," he whispered. "The distance... it was impossible."

"Adrenaline," Chelsea said loudly, for the benefit of the approaching teacher. "My mom says I have a fight-or-flight reflex like a rabbit."

She gave him a shaky smile. "I'm just glad you're okay, Rory."

He nodded slowly, blushing a furious red. "Thanks, Chelsea. You... you saved my life."

"Don't mention it," she said. "Literally. Please don't make a big deal out of it."

She turned to leave before the interrogation began.

As she walked up the aisle, she felt a prickle on the back of her neck. The sensation of being watched.

She glanced up toward the balcony level, where the shadows were deepest.

A figure stood there. Tall. Broad shoulders.

He was just a silhouette, but she saw the glint of eyes watching her. Studying her.

Chelsea shivered, but not from cold. She hurried out of the auditorium, clutching her bag.