Chapter 1

The old rope bit into the skin of my neck.

I kicked the wobbly crate away.

It was Thanksgiving break, the campus deserted, this ancient oak tree my silent witness.

My mission here, in this world, was to win absolute devotion from one of four men.

Years I'd spent. Years.

Pres Ashford, the campus king, my ex-boyfriend, was the latest failure.

He' d dumped me publicly, influenced by Seraphina Bellweather.

The System, the entity that sent me here, had rules.

Failure with all targets meant I could "die" in this mission world and return to my original one.

Sick, dying in my real life, but home.

This was my only way out now.

My last target, my last hope for the cure, gone.

So, let this be it. Let me go home.

The pressure built, my vision started to blur.

Almost there.

A sudden jerk. Air rushed into my lungs.

I coughed, hands clawing at my throat.

Someone was holding me up, cutting the rope.

Ethan Vance.

He dropped me to the ground. I lay there, gasping.

He stood over me, his face cold, a mask of disgust.

"Pathetic," Ethan said, his voice flat.

"Your dramatics won't work on me, Elara. You're not worth my notice."

He turned and walked away, leaving me on the damp earth.

Not worth his notice.

Four years ago, I was everything to him.

I tutored him when he was struggling, a brilliant mind no one saw.

I helped him get the scholarship, the one that changed his life.

He' d looked at me with such gratitude then, a warmth in his eyes.

Then Seraphina happened.

The frat party. The drugs. The assault.

Seraphina, the designated "heroine" of this world, another player like me, but one the System favored.

She framed me. Made it look like I was the monster.

Pres dumped me, his family' s influence ensuring my public disgrace.

Alex, my brother in this world, the fiercely protective medical resident, disowned me. Said I shamed our name.

Jake, my childhood friend, my first love here, publicly denounced me.

And Ethan? Ethan, who I pulled from the margins, turned me over to campus security.

"Harassment," he' d called my desperate pleas for him to believe me.

That led to the run-down dorm, the menial jobs, the constant whispers.

Four years of hell. Four years of Seraphina' s manipulations, her perfect victim act.

Now she was back on campus, supposedly "recovered."

Pres wanted her, only her.

And I was finally, completely, cast out.