Chapter 1

The last thing I saw was the Chicago skyline rushing up to meet me.

Then, darkness.

Now, sunlight.

It streamed through a window, hitting my face. I was in my dorm room. Freshman year.

My head throbbed. Not from a fall, but like a terrible hangover.

Memories, sharp and brutal, flooded in.

My parents, David and Susan Miller, their kind faces. Their blood on the polished floor of our home.

Brittany Evans. Scholarship student. My parents' charity case. Our family' s destroyer.

Her smile, so sweet, so fake. Her boyfriend, Spike, his cruel eyes.

The forged will. The accusations. The looks of disgust from everyone I knew.

The despair. The leap.

I sat bolt upright in bed, gasping. My hands flew to my throat, my chest. I was whole. Alive.

It was the first week of freshman year. Again.

I had a second chance.

A cold rage, something I' d never felt in my first, naive life, settled deep in my bones.

Brittany Evans would not win this time.

I got out of bed, my legs shaky. I looked in the mirror. Younger, yes. But my eyes held the horror of a future I had already lived.

Later that day, at the university orientation mixer, I saw her.

Brittany.

She was holding court with a group of new students, her voice bright and animated.

"Oh, the Millers have been just angels to me," she was saying, a hand pressed to her chest in mock gratitude. "Their foundation is sponsoring my studies. They' re like a second family."

Someone asked her about her background.

"Well, my guardians are quite private," Brittany said, a wistful look in her eyes. "They prefer to stay out of the limelight, but they' re very generous. Very established in Chicago."

Lies. All of it. Her background was poverty and violence, a world away from the one she painted.

My stomach churned. The sight of her, so confident in her deception, made me sick.

I remembered the upcoming Student Charity Gala. In my first life, it was one of Brittany' s early triumphs. She' d used a supplementary credit card, one my parents had given her for "emergencies," to make a grand, showy donation. It cemented her image as wealthy and generous.

Not this time.

I needed to act, but carefully. Revealing what I knew, this impossible knowledge of the future, would make me sound insane.

I had to be smart. Strategic.

My parents were still alive. That was everything.

I pulled out my phone, my fingers surprisingly steady. I scrolled to my dad' s number.

"Dad?"

"Jess! Honey, how' s orientation? Making friends?" His voice, warm and real, brought tears to my eyes.

"It' s great, Dad. Listen, quick question. About that supplementary card you gave Brittany for expenses..."

I had a plan. A small one, to start. But it would be the first crack in Brittany' s perfect facade.