Chapter 1

The gasp tore from my throat, raw and loud in the quiet morning.

My eyes snapped open. Same ceiling. Same damn floral wallpaper I kept meaning to change in my old room at Mom and Dad' s house, now mine and Emily' s.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

It wasn' t a dream. It couldn' t be. The blood, Emily' s face, the cold mountain air...

I threw the covers back. My limbs felt heavy, shaky, but they moved.

Today. It was today. The day Emily left. The day everything went to hell.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I snatched it, my hand trembling so hard I almost dropped it.

Family group chat. Emily.

"Hey guys, there's a letter in the safe in my old room. If I'm not back in a week, you know what to do. Love you!"

The exact same message.

No.

Not again.

I was back. I was really back.

A sob escaped me, half terror, half a desperate, wild hope.

The letter.

It started with the letter.

Mark, my sister' s husband, his curiosity, his damned weakness. Then David, my fiancé, his panic. And Kevin, our little brother, so easily led.

They had read it. And they had destroyed everything.

Emily. Her whole team. Me.

My mission was clear, seared into my brain from the nightmare I' d just lived: get that letter before anyone else.

I scrambled out of bed, my bare feet hitting the cold wood floor.

Emily' s old room was downstairs, the one she used when she stayed over. The safe was in the closet, behind a loose panel.

I had to replace it. Write a harmless note. Something about her favorite cookies, anything but the truth of that godforsaken mission.

I flew down the stairs, my breath coming in ragged bursts.

The house was quiet. Emily must have already left for the FBI field office.

Her room. The closet. The panel.

My fingers fumbled with the combination lock on the small safe. My old birthday. So predictable.

Click.

The small metal door swung open.

There it was. A plain white envelope. Emily' s neat, strong handwriting: "To My Family."

I grabbed it, my fingers closing around the paper that held so much death.

Relief, sharp and dizzying, washed over me. I had it. I could stop it.

"Sarah? What are you doing up so early?"

Mark.

My blood ran cold. He wasn' t supposed to be here. In the first timeline, he' d come home much later, after Emily was long gone.

I spun around, trying to shove the letter behind my back, into the waistband of my pajama pants.

Mark stood in the doorway, already dressed in his architect suit, a frown creasing his forehead. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Just... just looking for an old photo album," I stammered, my voice too high.

He didn' t look convinced. His eyes scanned the room, then me.

"Mr. Mark, I think you dropped this."

Maria. Our housekeeper. She was standing just behind him, a kind, worried smile on her face.

In her outstretched hand was the white envelope.

It must have slipped. When I turned.

No. Oh God, no.

"Thanks, Maria," Mark said, taking it from her. He glanced at the front. "To My Family? From Emily?"

His brow furrowed. "She just texted about this. Said not to open it for a week."

"Mark, don't!" I lunged for it, my voice a desperate plea. "Please, it's not... it' s for later!"

He held it out of my reach, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. "What's the big deal, Sarah? It's just a letter. Maybe it's something important I should know now, if she's going off on one of her secret squirrel missions."

Curiosity. That damned, fatal curiosity.

He tore the envelope open.

I watched, frozen in horror, as he pulled out the folded sheets of paper.

His eyes scanned the first page.

Then the second.

The color drained from his face. His charming, usually smiling features turned ashen.

He looked up at me, his eyes wide with a dawning terror I remembered all too well.

"Sarah... what... what kind of danger is she in?" he whispered, the letter trembling in his hand.

He didn't wait for an answer. He turned, almost stumbling, and walked quickly out of the room.

I heard his footsteps hurry towards the living room, towards his laptop.

The Facebook post.

It was happening again.