Chapter 3

Amelie was falling through a void of absolute blackness. Suddenly, a violent sensation of suffocation grabbed her by the throat and yanked her upward.

She snapped her eyes open and sucked in a massive breath of air, her chest heaving as if she had just broken the surface of a frozen lake.

She instinctively grabbed her stomach and her arm, expecting to feel shredded flesh and exposed bone. Her hands met smooth skin, covered only by a few tender bruises.

Her vision slowly focused. She wasn't in the mud of the Hamptons. She was lying on a lumpy spring mattress that smelled heavily of mildew and cheap bleach.

A flickering fluorescent bulb buzzed above her head. Peeling floral wallpaper covered the walls. The heavy rumble of a New York subway train shook the floorboards.

Amelie rolled off the bed. Her legs wobbled, but she forced herself to stand. She stumbled into the cramped, filthy bathroom and gripped the edges of the cracked porcelain sink.

She looked up into the shattered mirror. The face staring back at her was young, pale, and strikingly beautiful, but it was not hers. Her pupils dilated in absolute shock.

A sudden, sharp spike of pain drove into her temples. Memories that didn't belong to her flooded her brain like an electric shock. She gripped her head and dropped to her knees on the cold tile.

She was in the body of a twenty-two-year-old girl named Gena Corbett.

The memories settled. Gena's adoptive parents had drugged her tonight. They sold her to a loan shark named Mitch Kowalski to pay off their gambling debts.

The cheap lock on the motel room door clicked loudly. A heavy, balding man in a cheap suit pushed the door open, reeking of stale whiskey and sweat. It was Mitch.

Mitch yanked at his tight tie, loosening it. His greasy eyes scanned the room and landed on Gena kneeling by the bathroom door. He licked his lips.

Amelie-now Gena-stood up slowly. The timid, terrified girl Mitch expected was gone. The eyes looking back at him were dead, cold, and filled with the absolute violence of a woman who had just been eaten alive.

Mitch laughed, a wet, ugly sound. He lunged forward, reaching out with thick hands to shove her onto the mattress.

Amelie's memories flashed-the expensive Krav Maga instructor she had secretly hired after Hubert's first violent outburst years ago. Muscle memory took over. Gena shifted her weight and sidestepped with desperate but practiced precision. Mitch's momentum carried him forward, and he crashed face-first into the dusty mattress.

He grunted, pushing himself up, his face red with sudden anger. He swung his arm backward, backhanding Gena across the face.

Gena's new body was still sluggish from the drugs her parents had given her. She couldn't duck in time. The heavy ring on Mitch's finger caught her cheek, splitting her lip. The taste of copper filled her mouth.

That single drop of blood ignited the dormant, raging hellfire inside her. Gena reached out and grabbed the heavy, thick glass ashtray sitting on the nightstand.

Mitch turned around and lunged at her again. Gena didn't step back. She swung the heavy glass ashtray with every ounce of strength in her body, smashing it directly into the center of Mitch's forehead.

The glass shattered. Mitch screamed, a high-pitched wail of pain. He stumbled backward, clutching his bleeding face, and crashed into the floor lamp, sending it toppling over.

Gena didn't hesitate. She stepped forward, grabbed his shoulders, and drove her knee upward, burying it deep into his groin.

Mitch collapsed to the floor like a sack of wet cement. He curled into a tight ball, wheezing and groaning, completely incapacitated.

Gena stepped over his twitching body. She reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of twenty-dollar bills and a set of car keys.

She grabbed Gena's canvas tote bag from the chair, shoved the door open, and ran out into the pouring rain of Queens.

The freezing rain hit her face like tiny needles. Gena tilted her head back, opened her arms, and let the water wash over her. The physical sensation of the freezing rain proved she was alive. She had a body. She had a second chance.

She ran down the sidewalk for three blocks, her lungs burning. She ducked into a dark, narrow alleyway overflowing with garbage cans and pressed her back against the wet brick wall to catch her breath.

She repeated her new name in her head. Gena. She would use this body to tear the Pierce family down to the studs.

A sharp, rapid series of footsteps echoed from the deep end of the alley. Then, the distinct, muffled thwip-thwip of a silenced pistol firing.

Gena's muscles locked. She dropped into a crouch and scrambled behind the shadow of a massive green dumpster.

A tall, broad-shouldered silhouette stumbled around the corner of the alley. The man took two uneven steps and collapsed, splashing heavily into a deep puddle of dirty water less than six feet away from where Gena hid.