Chapter 1

The fluorescent lights of the AP Computer Science lab hummed.

A familiar, sickening hum.

I blinked.

My head throbbed, a dull ache behind my eyes.

Last year, this room was my sanctuary.

Then it became the first stage of my public execution.

The memory hit me, sharp and brutal.

The Innovate Tomorrow scholarship, my environmental monitoring app, praised, celebrated.

Then, the results.

Abysmal.

Ethan Cunningham, my boyfriend, the popular quarterback, and Brittany Van Doren, the head cheerleader, won.

With an app that looked like mine, just a different skin.

Their faces, triumphant. Mine, aghast.

The disbelief from Ms. Albright, my mentor.

Mr. Davison, the principal, his disappointment a physical blow.

My parents, ashamed.

Accusations. Jealousy. Fabrication.

The breakdown. The darkness.

Now, I was back.

Beginning of senior year. Months before the deadline.

The pain was a fresh wound, still bleeding.

Ethan sat beside me, his arm casually draped over the back of my chair.

He leaned in, smelling of expensive cologne and something else, something cloying.

"Hey babe, how's the code coming?"

His voice, the same smooth tone that used to make my heart flutter.

Now, it was a warning bell.

I mumbled something, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Then, a voice.

Not his spoken voice.

A thought, clear as if he' d shouted it.

Keep coding, Maya! Every line of code you write brings me and Brittany closer to that MIT scholarship! Haha!

I froze.

My blood ran cold.

I stared at my screen, the cursor blinking, mocking me.

It wasn' t a premonition.

It was a memory.

And this was my impossible second chance.

The thought echoed, his internal laughter sharp and cruel.

MIT. For him and Brittany.

My dream. Stolen.

And he was admitting it, right inside his own head.

A weird fluke? A side effect of... whatever happened to me?

It didn' t matter.

I knew.