Chapter 1

The silence of the panic room was a part of me now. After three years, the soundproofed walls were more familiar than my own skin.

Then the door opened.

Ethan stood there, framed by the light of the mansion I no longer recognized. He looked the same. Powerful. Perfect. Cruel.

"It's time, Sarah," he said. His voice was flat, like a business transaction.

Two orderlies I didn't know pushed my wheelchair out of the dark and into the blindingly bright living room. It was all white marble and gold, a palace I was once supposed to be queen of.

Now I was just a prisoner on display.

My muscles had wasted away. My legs, shattered in the "accident," were useless beneath a cashmere blanket.

And they were all there, waiting. The happy family.

Ethan. My husband.

Chloe. The star he built from my stolen songs. She sat on the arm of his chair, her hand on his shoulder, her platinum hair perfect. She was beautiful and empty.

And Leo. My son. He was seven now. He stood beside Chloe, holding her hand, looking up at her with pure adoration.

He didn't even glance at me.

"Leo, say hello to Sarah," Ethan said, his tone casual.

Leo looked at me. His eyes were cold. He hid behind Chloe's leg.

Chloe smiled, a sweet, poisonous thing. "It's okay, baby. She's been away a long time. It' s a lot to take in."

She then looked at me, her eyes glittering with victory. She had my songs, my career, my husband. She even had my son. He called her "mom." I heard it on the television reports they sometimes let me watch.

"Sarah," Ethan began, his voice dropping to that low, dangerous tone I knew so well. "You know why you're here. Chloe's label, the press, they're all waiting. You need to make a statement."

I said nothing. My voice felt like rust in my throat.

"You will apologize for plagiarizing Chloe's work," he stated, not asked. "You will say your jealousy drove you to it. And you will explain that the car accident was a tragic result of Chloe's devoted fans, who were understandably upset by your lies."

A lie. Every word a lie. He had arranged the accident. He had locked me away. He had fed my entire life's work, my soul, to this talentless fraud.

I looked from his cold face to Chloe's smug one, then to my son, who stared at me like I was a monster.

There was nothing left. No hope. No fight.

I remembered the Pact.

A whisper in my mind, a deal made in a moment of youthful desperation long before Nashville, long before Ethan. A way out. A reset button. If this world becomes unbearable, you can leave. Return to the moment you left.

I had never used it. I had loved Ethan. I had loved the life we were building.

I looked at him, and for the first time in three years, I felt something other than pain. I felt nothing.

He reached for me, maybe to touch my shoulder, maybe to force me. "Sarah. Do it."

As his fingers brushed the fabric of my sleeve, I closed my eyes and thought the word.

Leave.

The world dissolved. The opulent room, the cruel faces, the weight of the wheelchair-it all vanished.

I was gone.