Chapter 3

Zoe's POV

The piercing dismissal bell sawed into my eardrums for a third time.

I violently jolted up from the porch steps, vomiting up air in massive gulps.

I ripped my sleeve up—on my pale skin, the blood-red [2] was twisting, morphing, until it locked into a terrifyingly clear number:

[1].

Three times. I only had three lives in total! Once this number hit zero, I would stay dead. I'd just be another nameless corpse turning up at this godforsaken boarding school.

The clicking of high heels approached.

"If you're thinking about going to the principal's office tomorrow to submit that report against Luke—"

"Shut up!" I snapped my head up, my bloodshot eyes locking onto my perfectly dressed mother.

Grace froze, the threat dying in her throat.

"Zoe, what is wrong with you?" Grace reached out to grab my arm.

I slapped her hand away so hard it echoed, rammed my shoulder into hers, and bolted straight into the crowded hallway.

I was about to run to the front gate security office when whispers from a group of girls near the lockers drifted into my ears.

"Did you see Zoe freaking out just now?"

"Gross. Trying to send her own brother to juvie."

"Luke just played a joke on a freshman, and she has to write a formal report. So psycho. No wonder her mom gives up on her."

My feet stopped dead, as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head.

Using her authority and manipulation, Grace had already successfully painted me to the whole campus as an emotionally unstable, paranoid freak out to destroy her own family. Even if I screamed bloody murder right now, the guards wouldn't save me—they'd just "return" me to Grace’s custody!

I couldn't go to security. I couldn't go to classmates. Who was left?

The dorm!

Ms. Bell, the dorm matron. She was a brutally strict former nun who didn't give a damn about the Dean of Students or the school board. If I could just burst through the electronic-lock double doors of the female dorm lobby, she would never let an outsider drag me away!

I turned on my heel and sprinted full speed toward the dorms.

"Ms. Bell!" I crashed into the dorm doors, slamming against the glass.

Suddenly, a sickeningly familiar scent of perfume drifted from the shadows of the porch.

"Zoe, what are you running so fast for?"

I whipped around in pure terror. Grace! She beat me here!

Ms. Bell opened the door, adjusting her reading glasses. "Dean Grace? What's going on? Why is Zoe screaming?"

"Ms. Bell! Call the police! Call 911!" I grabbed the old matron's arm, shaking violently. "She's trying to kill me! She set up a trap on campus with a hitman!"

Ms. Bell's eyes went wide.

"Zoe, that's enough," Grace sighed, her tone dripping with exhausting, suffocating heartbreak. She walked up the steps, gently placing a hand on my shoulder, before looking at Ms. Bell.

"I'm so sorry, Ms. Bell. With finals coming up, she stopped taking her psychiatric meds for a few days, and she's having paranoid delusions." Grace's voice was gentle enough to draw water. "She constantly fantasizes that we are persecuting her over her brother's disciplinary issue."

"Bullshit!" I thrashed like a maniac, gripping Ms. Bell’s sleeve for dear life. "Don't listen to her! She's a monster!"

Ms. Bell looked at my hysterical state, then looked at Grace’s reddened eyes and "pained mother" expression. The adult world rapidly reached a consensus.

"Grace, do you need me to call the school nurse to assist?" Ms. Bell took a half step back, peeling my fingers off her sleeve.

"No need. It's family business; the fewer people who know, the better," Grace smiled, looking utterly defeated.

"Alright. She's in your hands then. Be careful," Ms. Bell nodded, retreating back inside the lobby.

"No! Ms. Bell! You're going to get me killed—" I shrieked in absolute despair.

"Are you done throwing your tantrum?" Grace didn't even bother pretending anymore. The gentleness instantly evaporated from her face. She turned, walking down the steps, coldly dropping one sentence: "Make it clean."

What?

Before I could react, a massive shadow dropped directly from the awning above my head.

No footsteps. No warning.

The hulking, masked figure landed right in front of me.

"You—"

I barely got one word out before his hand shot out like lightning, clamping under my chin and violently twisting right.

The crisp crack of my cervical vertebrae snapping exploded in my head. No blood, but far cleaner than a knife. The world spun out of control as every ounce of light was vacuumed from my eyes.

...

The deafening school bell dragged me out of the abyss for the fourth time.

I dropped to my knees on the steps outside the academic building, soaked through with cold sweat. Trembling, I pulled up my sleeve.

On my forearm, the glaring [1] had shifted into a definitive death sentence:

[0].

This was the final loop. If I didn't survive tonight, when the sun rose tomorrow, I would become a genuine corpse.

The click of high heels arrived right on cue.

Grace strode up to me. She leaned down, her flawless makeup nearly touching my nose, and delivered her warning word by word in a volume only I could hear:

"Listen, you little brat. If you do one more thing to ruin Luke's future, not even God can save you in this school tonight."