Chapter 1

The world ripped back into focus with a gasp, the fluorescent lights of my bedroom ceiling burning my eyes.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a wild drumbeat of pure terror.

It wasn't a dream.

The memory, raw and bleeding, clawed at my mind. David, my brother, his future shattered. Mom and Dad, their faces etched with a grief so profound it stole their lives. And Tiffany. Always Tiffany.

The accusations, the shame, the downward spiral. David, the star quarterback, the golden boy, reduced to a ghost haunting our home.

His scholarship, gone. His spirit, crushed.

Then the street race, a desperate, reckless bid for an escape he never found.

Mom' s heart gave out first, a fragile thing broken by sorrow. Dad followed soon after, the light in his eyes extinguished.

My own end was a blur of rage, a final, bloody confrontation with Tiffany where we both met our demise.

I squeezed my eyes shut, the images too vivid, too real.

This couldn't be.

But the calendar on my wall, the one I' d stared at for weeks dreading this exact day, showed today' s date. The day it all began. The day Tiffany Evans, with her carefully crafted mask of vulnerability, first asked to stay over.

The day before David' s SATs and his final scholarship interview.

I was back.

I actually had a second chance.