Chapter 3

"Vivian, tell them to let me go," Mason demanded. "I only came for you."

He tried to push himself up on one elbow. Even pinned to the floor, he angled his face the way he used to—chin down, eyes up, the look that had once made me feel chosen.

I had watched that same face promise me we would be happy.

I had also watched it promise a man on the phone that I was worth fifty grand.

The memory had shown me more than our deaths. It had shown me the months before them: his fists, his insults, and the men he brought into our apartment while I was too beaten to fight them off.

The baby felt my fear. "You're safe here, Mom. Grandma is here. Dad will be here soon."

My mother Evelyn saw my face and turned on the guards. "Why are you still standing there? Get him up—and then get him off my property."

The guards hauled Mason upright. He fought them, calling my name.

"I came to take you away! Vivian, tell them the truth!"

Two guards held Mason. Tessa stood less than a step from me. My father's security, my mother's staff—and every one of them was looking at me to see what I would do.

I said nothing.

Tessa took the silence as permission.

"What is wrong with you?" she shouted at me. "That's Mason. How can you let them treat him like this?"

My mother slapped her.

The crack silenced the room.

"Who gave you permission to speak to my daughter that way?" Evelyn asked. "Vivian treated you like a friend. You are not her equal, and you never were."

The baby cheered. "Go, Grandma!"

Then its voice changed. "Mom. In the first life, she killed Grandma too."

I pressed a hand to my stomach. How?

Tessa had sent my mother to the wrong state on purpose, then waited until the timing was right to correct the lie. Evelyn walked into that apartment while Mason's customers were still there. She saw me on the mattress. She fell before she reached me.

She died in an ambulance two streets away from where I bled out.

I looked at my mother. She stood four feet from me, shoulders squared, still deciding what to do to Tessa.

Alive. Warm. Still angry on my behalf.

She had no idea I had already buried her once.

Tessa cupped her reddening cheek. Hatred flashed through her eyes before she lowered them.

"Mrs. Foster, I'm not lying. Vivian invited him. They're actually—"

"Enough." My mother did not raise her voice. "You brought a stranger onto my property, and then screamed at my daughter in her own home. Both of you can wait outside while I decide what to do with you."

The guards marched them into the courtyard and forced them to their knees.

My mother followed them out. I could hear her telling the head of security to start the paperwork for Tessa's dismissal.

But the front door opened before she could finish.

My father hurried in. He saw Mason on his knees in the courtyard, saw the guards holding him, saw my mother's face.

Then he asked what happened.

Which meant he had already decided not to look at me.

I studied the man who had always called me his little girl.

For the first time, I wondered whose side he would choose.