Chapter 3 3

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."