Chapter 1

For sixteen years, I was a ghost in the Miller house. I came here at fifteen, a debt my family couldn't pay. My purpose was simple: raise their son, Caleb, and wait for him to turn twenty-one. Then, I would be his wife.

I cooked for them. I cleaned for them. I nursed his mother, Mary, through every sickness, real or imagined. I did Caleb' s homework when he was a high-school football star and washed his uniforms until my knuckles were raw. I was a servant, a mother, a caretaker. I was everything but a person.

In my first life, his twenty-first birthday was our wedding day. A quiet ceremony at the courthouse, then back to the farm. He didn't look at me once. His eyes were only for Chloe, the new girl in town with bright lipstick and a laugh that grated on my nerves.

That night, he told me to sleep on the floor. I didn' t argue. But my quiet sadness, the way I couldn' t stop my shoulders from shaking, made him angry. Chloe whispered something in his ear. He dragged me to the basement and locked the door.

I stayed there for ten years.

He brought me food sometimes. Other times he forgot. When he was finally tired of me, he sold me to a man everyone called Scrap Yard Joe. Joe was a monster. He used me until my body was broken. I had two daughters in his filthy trailer. He killed us all when the youngest was just a few months old. My last memory was the cold metal of his gun against my head.

Then, I woke up.

The music was loud, pounding through the floorboards. It was Caleb' s twenty-first birthday party. Again. I was back.

I sat up on my narrow bed in the attic room. I knew what was coming. The wedding, the basement, Scrap Yard Joe.

Not this time.

I stood up, my mind clear and cold. I would not fight. I would not cry. I would simply leave.

I walked down the stairs. The party was in full swing. People from town, church members, all drinking Caleb' s beer and eating the food I had spent two days preparing.

Caleb saw me. He was standing with Chloe, his arm slung around her waist. His face, usually handsome and arrogant, was tight with a strange paranoia. He had been reborn, too. I could see it in his eyes. The memory of what he did was there, lurking behind the haze of alcohol.

"What are you doing down here?" he snapped.

Chloe looked at me, a sweet, fake smile on her face. "Sarah, you should be resting. It' s your big day tomorrow."

I ignored her. I looked directly at Caleb.

"I' m leaving, Caleb."

My voice was calm. Too calm. It wasn' t the voice of the timid, beaten-down girl he had known his whole life.

He stared at me, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Leaving? What are you talking about? We' re getting married tomorrow. The deal is the deal."

"The deal is off," I said. "I' m not marrying you. I' m going."

His face twisted with rage and confusion. This wasn' t how it happened last time. He didn' t believe me. He couldn' t comprehend it.

"You' re plotting something," he hissed, grabbing my arm. His grip was like iron. "You think you can just walk away? After everything my family has done for you?"

"You' ve done nothing for me," I said, my voice still level. "You bought me. Now I' m leaving."

His paranoia flared. "No. You' re trying to ruin me. You' re going to tell people something."

He started dragging me toward the back door, past the stunned party guests.

"Caleb, what are you doing?" Chloe asked, her voice laced with false concern.

"She' s trying to run away! She' s going to lie about us!" he yelled.

He hauled me out into the cold night air and toward the old root cellar, its slanted doors set into a small hill behind the house. He wrenched one of the doors open, revealing a black, gaping hole.

"You want to be in the dark so bad?" he snarled, his face inches from mine. "Fine."

He shoved me hard. I stumbled forward, my feet finding no purchase. I fell into the darkness, landing with a sickening thud on the hard-packed dirt floor. The fall broke the old wooden ladder, the rungs splintering with a loud crack.

I lay there, the wind knocked out of me, tasting dirt and blood. Above, Chloe' s silhouette appeared against the night sky.

"She' s probably faking it," she said, her sweet voice dripping with venom.

Then, with a grunt of effort, she lifted a heavy cinder block from a pile near the cellar doors. She rolled it into the opening. It crashed into the darkness, missing my head by inches and shattering on the floor. She rolled another one. And another. She was trying to kill me. Again.