Chapter 1

The shove was hard, unexpected.

Wind rushed past my ears.

Then, nothing.

Darkness.

Until a memory, sharp and cruel, sliced through the void.

Ethan. My childhood friend.

His face, twisted with a strange satisfaction, handing me the drink.

"Just something to help you relax, Maya. For the medical exam."

The Naval Academy. Annapolis. My dream.

Shattered.

The drug he gave me. It made me fail.

He went to an Ivy League, then tech riches. I ended up in a dead-end job at a fulfillment center, packing boxes, my spirit as empty as the containers I filled.

Years passed.

The high school reunion.

Ethan was there, successful, polished. Jessica Hayes clung to his arm, her eyes like chips of ice.

A glance. That' s all it was. Ethan looked at me, just for a second.

Jessica saw it. Her face tightened.

Later that night, the pain.

Hands grabbing me, pulling me.

Jessica' s voice, cold, triumphant. "You should have stayed away, Maya. You don't fit into the script."

The script?

Then the balcony, the open air, the long fall.

As I died, a horrifying thought bloomed. Jessica knew. She knew the "plot." She was reborn too.

This wasn't just bad luck. This was a setup. Across two lives.

I gasped, shooting upright.

Sunlight streamed through a familiar window. My bedroom. My old posters on the wall.

My body felt...young. Energetic.

I scrambled out of bed, to the mirror.

No lines of hardship. No haunted look in my eyes.

Just me. Seventeen again.

My phone lay on the nightstand. I grabbed it.

The date. Three months.

Three months before the SATs. Three months before the Naval Academy medical evaluations.

A cold fire ignited in my chest.

Rebirth.

A second chance.

Not just to reclaim my dream.

But for revenge.

Ethan Miller. Jessica Hayes.

This time, they wouldn't win.

This time, I knew the script too. And I was going to rewrite it.

My parents. I had to see them.

They were downstairs, the smell of coffee and bacon, a scent I hadn't realized I' d missed so much.

Mom looked up from the newspaper, Dad from his toast.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Mom said, her smile warm.

"You okay, mija?" Dad asked, concern in his eyes. "You look a little pale."

I managed a smile. "Never better."

They didn't know. They couldn't.

This fight was mine.

The memory of Jessica' s words echoed. "You don't fit into the script."

Oh, I' d fit.

I' d be the ending they never saw coming.

The first life was a tragedy.

This one would be their downfall.